Daily Kos is a group blog and internet forum focused on liberal American politics. Additionally, the site features a participatory political encyclopedia (“DKosopedia”), glossaries, and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of “netroots” activism.
Founded on May 26, 2002, Daily Kos is the premier online political community with 2.5 million unique visitors per month and a quarter of a million registered users. It is at once a news organization, community, and activist hub. Among luminaries posting diaries on the site are President Jimmy Carter, Senator Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and dozens of other senators, congressmen, and governors. Even more exciting than that, however, are the hundreds of thousands of regular Americans that have used Daily Kos to shape a political world once the exclusive domain of the rich, connected, and powerful.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is founder and publisher of Daily Kos, the largest progressive community blog in the United States. Named “the single most successful entrepreneur of the progressive movement” by NY Times magazine writer and author Matt Bai, Moulitsas is also co-author of the critically acclaimed book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, author of Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era, a contributing columnist to Newsweek Magazine and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the world by People en Español, clocked in at third in Forbes’ Web Celeb 25 rankings, and was listed 26th in PC World’s list of the “Most Important People on the Web”.
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
Founder, Daily Kos
Moulitsas was born on September 11, 1971, in Chicago, IL. The son of a Salvadoran mother and Greek father, Moulitsas spent his formative years in El Salvador (1976-1980), where he saw first-hand the ravages of civil war. His family fled threats on their lives by the communist guerillas and settled in the Chicago area.
After high school, Moulitsas served in the U.S. Army (1989-92) as a 13P — Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Fire Direction Specialist. He trained at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and served the remainder of his three-year enlistment in Bamberg, Germany. While he entered the Army as a Republican, he abandoned the GOP soon after his enlistment.
Moulitsas earned two bachelor degrees at Northern Illinois University (1992-96), with majors in Philosophy, Journalism, and Political Science and a minor in German. He subsequently earned a J.D. at Boston University School of Law (1996-99) before deciding that it would be a cold day in hell before he ever worked as a lawyer.
He headed West to the San Francisco Bay Area to make his dot.com millions but got nowhere. He worked as a project manager at a web development shop when, in 2002, he started Daily Kos. Moulitsas flirted with political consulting in 2003, but that didn’t last long, and he has focused on Daily Kos full-time since early 2004.
In addition to running Kos Media, LLC, which publishes Daily Kos, Moulitsas is also founder of venture-backed SB Nation network of sports blogs. He’s an avid pianist and composer.
Moulitsas has been happily married since 2000. He has a wonderful boy, Aristotle, born in November 2003 and is ridiculously in love with his daughter, Elisandra, born in April 2007.
Will Rockafellow (Wilburtronic)
General Manager
Will was born a Midwestern river rat in 1973. He grew up on a steady diet of corn, fried catfish, and basketball. After getting a B.A. in journalism, he moved to Colorado, where he fell in love with full moon descents down Loveland Pass and finally discovered good American beer. His wife convinced him it was a good idea to move to the Bay Area. On his first visit, he knew she was right and took a mental note to listen to her always. His previous jobs include booking bands, working in record stores, selling advertising, accounting for very large numbers, and finally settling on a career in the book biz after relocating to Berkeley in 2000. In 2006, he helped usher Glenn Greenwald’s How Would a Patriot Act? on to the New York Times Best Sellers list. He then became a Kos Fellow and founded Vaster Books with Kos and Jane Hamsher. There he published Marcy Wheeler’s Anatomy of Deceit and began to handle some tasks on the business side of Daily Kos. He continues to connect authors with publishers, but now works full time as the General Manager of Daily Kos. He sits on the board of the Kos Fellowship Program, is an advisor to Netroots Nation, and served on the executive tea
