tonyhaile.com

My name is Tony Haile, that is where I got the name for this site. I currently work for Betaworks, where I am General Manager for Chartbeat and (greedily) Twitterfeed. I read a lot of fortune cookies or, when I am full, horoscopes.

I think a lot about identity, information and the real-time open web; I even speak about it on occasion, though this is principally because my British accent makes panels sound like Masterpiece Theatre.

My career prior to Betaworks has been somewhat bizarre. After a Masters degree in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews in which I spent a semester studying at a Palestinian university in the West Bank and narrowly avoided getting blown up (by both sides), I became a bowman and extreme blogger on a round-the-world yacht race where I got to experience hurricanes, knockdowns, lightning strikes and being picked up by 90ft waves and thrown against wire rigging several times an hour. This is actually more fun than it sounds.

Searching for quieter pastures I joined Control Risks as the Editor of their Middle East and International Terrorism desk and promptly got embroiled in the response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. I pulled out, roughly when Bush should have, and in 2004 partnered the awesome and highly-sponsorable Ben Saunders in various polar expeditions, bringing social media to the world of adventure. As a result I have been to the North Pole, negotiated with vodka-fuelled helicopter pilots in Siberia, built a runway in Greenland, smuggled explosives through Heathrow and meat into Canada.

I have good dinner party stories, invite me.

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