Brad Templeton

Brad Templeton is a Canadian software developer and internet entrepreneur known for founding ClariNet, pioneering online publishing, and consulting on self-driving car technology. He has been a prominent advocate for online civil liberties and a futurist speaker.

Brad Templeton (born June 1960 near Toronto) is a Canadian software developer, internet entrepreneur, online community pioneer, publisher, writer, photographer, civil rights advocate, futurist, and self-driving car consultant. He is best known for founding ClariNet Communications, the first company to conduct commercial activity over the early Internet, and for his extensive work in online publishing, Usenet culture, and autonomous vehicle technology. Templeton graduated from the University of Waterloo and has held leadership roles in several technology and advocacy organizations.

Templeton's career spans multiple decades, beginning with early microcomputer software in the late 1970s and extending to his current work as a consultant and commentator on self-driving cars. His contributions have touched on areas as diverse as spreadsheet tools, e-book publishing, internet governance, and artificial intelligence applications. He has been a board member of the Foresight Institute since 2004 and a founding faculty member of Singularity University, where he has chaired the Networks and Computing program since 2010.

Early Software Career

Templeton began his professional career in the late 1970s, working with VisiCorp, the company behind the pioneering VisiCalc spreadsheet. In 1978, he authored the Time Trek game for the Commodore PET, and the following year he consulted on the port of VisiCalc to that platform. He also ported Checker King for Apple and Atari systems in 1979 and Microchess for Atari in 1980. In 1981, he was lead author of Visiplot, a graphing tool for the IBM PC.

During the early 1980s, Templeton developed programming tools for Commodore computers, including the PAL assembler (1980) and the POWER programming tools (1981). He later led development of ALICE, a personal Pascal structure editor and integrated development environment for the IBM PC, Atari ST, and QNX systems, released in 1985, followed by a Basic version for QNX in 1986. He also authored 3-2-1 Blastoff, a spreadsheet compiler for Lotus 1-2-3, in 1987, and the 3-2-1 Gosub programming tool in 1988. In 1989, he contributed as a compressor author to Stuffit Deluxe from Aladdin Systems.

ClariNet and Commercial Internet

In 1989, Templeton founded ClariNet Communications, which became the first company established to engage in commercial activity over the early Internet. ClariNet distributed news and information services, including text versions of wire service content, to subscribers via email and Usenet. As founder and CEO, Templeton pioneered a business model that demonstrated the commercial viability of the Internet before the World Wide Web became widespread.

ClariNet also served as a platform for Templeton's publishing ventures. He edited and published the Hugo and Nebula Anthology 1993, one of the largest early commercial e-book projects, which included five full novels still in hardback release along with short fiction and multimedia content. This was part of the "Library of Tomorrow" project, which offered a full library of fiction on an "all you can read" subscription basis. In later years, the annual digital anthology of Hugo Award nominees became a standard practice, influenced by this early effort.

Usenet and rec.humor.funny

Templeton played an active role in the development of Usenet, the distributed discussion system that predated the web. His most notable contribution was the creation and moderation of the newsgroup rec.humor.funny, a moderated group devoted to comedy. According to statistics compiled by Brian Reid, rec.humor.funny was the most widely read online publication starting in 1989 and continued in that position into the mid-1990s, with an estimated 440,000 readers at its peak.

He also authored the Newsclip programming language for Usenet filtering in 1988, which allowed users to selectively filter incoming posts. Templeton compiled several annual editions of the group's content, including The Telejokebook and rec.humor.funny annual volumes from 1988 to 1992, and The Internet Jokebook in 1995. His moderation and editorial work helped establish norms for online community governance and content curation.

Electronic Frontier Foundation and Civil Liberties

Templeton has been involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) since 1997, serving as chairman from 2000 to 2010. The EFF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world, including free speech, privacy, and innovation. His work there focused on free speech, computer security, privacy, and intellectual property issues.

His advocacy has included being the subject of one of the first major internet bans and serving as a plaintiff before the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark case Reno v. ACLU (1997), which struck down provisions of the Communications Decency Act and affirmed that the Internet deserves the highest level of First Amendment protection. Templeton has also authored several well-known internet essays on copyright and netiquette.

Self-Driving Cars and Futurism

Since 2007, Templeton has been an active writer and consultant in the field of self-driving cars, or "robocars." He built the website Robocars.com and writes regularly on the topic at Brad Ideas. In 2010, he joined the Google self-driving car project, now known as Waymo, where he consulted on strategy and technology. He has also served as a consulting advisor for Starship Technologies, a delivery robot company, and Quanergy, a LIDAR sensor manufacturer, among others.

Templeton holds 21 patents in self-driving cars and telephony. He writes frequently on autonomous vehicle topics for his own website, the Forbes site, and other publications. His work in this area has made him a recognized voice on the technical, regulatory, and societal implications of autonomous transportation.

Speaking and Other Roles

Templeton has been a keynote speaker at numerous conferences and events worldwide, including Wired UK, Pioneers Festival Vienna, Web Summit, Next Berlin, The Next Web Amsterdam, and the Singularity Summit in multiple cities across Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, Hungary, Spain, South Africa, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark. He has also spoken at the University of British Columbia Master Mind Class, Ontario Centres of Excellence Toronto, USI Paris, Australian Unix Users Group Sydney, Korean Global Leaders Forum, CLSA Forum Hong Kong and Tokyo, and Baidu Big Talk in Beijing.

He was a director of BitTorrent Inc., whose software was the largest driver of internet bandwidth use during the early 21st century. Templeton has also been an active artist at Burning Man, creating installations based on photography and telephony. He is the son of Charles Templeton, a noted Canadian evangelist and broadcaster, and Sylvia Murphy, and the brother of Ty Templeton, a comic book artist.

Legacy and Influence

Templeton's career reflects the evolution of the internet from a research network to a commercial and social platform. His early work with ClariNet demonstrated that paid content distribution could work online, while his moderation of rec.humor.funny helped establish the role of community moderators in maintaining quality and civility. His advocacy with the EFF contributed to legal protections for online speech, and his ongoing work on self-driving cars positions him at the forefront of a major technological transition.

As a futurist, Templeton has consistently focused on how emerging technologies - from artificial intelligence to autonomous vehicles - will reshape society. His writings and public speaking continue to influence discussions on technology policy, innovation, and the future of transportation. Through his patents, essays, and consulting work, he has left a lasting mark on multiple fields, from software development to internet governance to mobility.