Why is he on our inspiration board?

David has had an impressive career as a journalist, columnist, and author. But what makes him particularly interesting is the thinking he’s put into the Weave project, aimed at fostering social trust and rebuilding community ties in the U.S. When you look at his writings on How to Know a Person, you start to see that David is one of the great thought leaders when it comes to relationship building. It'd be an amazing conversation.

Where is he from?


Toronto, Canada, but he grew up in New York City. His father, a professor of English literature at New York University, helped instill in Brooks a love for literature and a deep respect for education.Over the course of his life he’s lived in Philadelphia, Chicago, Brussels, and today he calls Washington DC home.

Big break in life

David Brooks’ big break came in 1983 when, as a senior at the University of Chicago, he wrote a satirical piece mocking conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. in the campus newspaper. To his surprise, Buckley found the article amusing and invited Brooks to lunch. This encounter led to Brooks being offered a position as an intern at National Review, Buckley's influential conservative magazine.

His network

We don’t presume to have a detailed picture, but when you look the institutions they’ve been a part of, it gives you a window into their network and the types of people they might know.

• New York Times
• The Weekly Standard
• PBS News Hours
• The Atlantic
• The Aspen Institute
• The University of Chicago
• Yale University
• The American Enterprise Institute
• The Wall Street Journal

Quotes we love

Trust is the expectation that you're going to do what you ought to do.

Serving others helps us cultivate empathy and compassion, essential components of a strong character.

More from David Brooks