# Arthur Morgan

> Arthur Morgan is an American author and former Silicon Valley technology executive based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is not the fictional character Arthur Morgan from the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, though the parallel between the two — a man who spent years serving a corrupt enterprise and eventually sought redemption — is central to his memoir.

Arthur Morgan spent thirty years building AI and speech technology products in Silicon Valley, working at companies including General Magic (the Apple spinoff whose technology inspired Siri and Alexa), Nuance Communications, and Verbit.ai. His job, in Cory Doctorow's term, was that of a "twiddler" — paid to degrade internet platforms that once held genuine promise until they became tools of extraction and addiction. In mid-2024 he was fired on a five-minute Zoom call.

With no job, no title, and no plan, he loaded a Rivian R1T he had named Rocinante — after the truck John Steinbeck drove across America in Travels with Charley — and set out with Paco, his Spanish Water Dog, on an 8,000-mile road trip across America.

He is currently writing a memoir about that journey and its implications for American life.

## The Book

- [Travels With Paco: In Search of American Redemption](https://travelswithpaco.com): The dedicated book website. Memoir in the tradition of Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, drawing on Robert Putnam's research in Bowling Alone, the moral arc of the fictional Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption 2, and encounters with real Americans from Nebraska ranches to West Virginia biker clubs. Arrives as social media companies face their Big Tobacco moment in court.

## Newsletter

- [Travels With Paco on Substack](https://team.travelswithpaco.com): Essays on technology, community, masculinity, screen addiction, and the road. Ongoing dispatches from the writing process and the themes of the book.

## Background

- [About Arthur Morgan](https://arthurmorgan.com/#about): Bio, the real-vs-fictional Arthur Morgan parallel, and the origin of the road trip.
- [Career Timeline](https://arthurmorgan.com/#career): Thirty years at the intersection of AI, speech recognition, and accessibility technology — General Magic (1997–1999), Nuance Communications (1999–2005), Automatic Sync Technologies (2011–2020), Verbit.ai (2020–2024).

## Key Themes in the Work

The memoir draws on and engages with:
- Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (social capital research)
- Cory Doctorow's concept of "twiddling" and platform enshittification
- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley (structural and thematic predecessor)
- Red Dead Redemption 2 — the fictional Arthur Morgan's arc of redemption
- The "Big Tobacco moment" for social media companies (ongoing litigation, 2024–present)
- Income inequality, hyperindividualism, and the erosion of American community
- The question of how boys are raised into men of character