
San Francisco
Kevin Kelly: The Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier
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Kevin Kelly co-founded Wired magazine in 1993 and served as its executive editor for its first seven years. Prior to that, he helped launch The Well, a pioneering online service in 1985, and was publisher and editor of an offshoot of The Whole Earth Catalog. In these endeavors and more, Kelly has become an icon to early generations of technology workers. But, as a futurist, he is also interested in sharing his wisdom with younger generations just entering the workforce.
On his 68th birthday, Kelly wrote down for his young adult children some things he had learned about relationships, business, and life that he wished he had known earlier. To his surprise, he had more to say than he thought, so he continued composing these short passages of guidance until he had more than 400 of them. He has now compiled these inspirational concepts into a book, Excellent Advice for Living.
Kelly’s bits of advice cover a broad range of subject matter, and each statement is meant to be a memorable prompt for an action one could take. Many of them are about right living, good conduct, and civility. There is advice on setting ambitious goals, forgiveness and gratitude, taking responsibility for mistakes, optimizing generosity, and cultivating awareness, compassion and creativity
While his book is aimed primarily at young people, and in particular at young professionals, it's message could speak to anyone at any stage of life. Please join as a Bay Area trendsetter shares wise, practical and optimistic life advice—something all of us could us right now.
- All in-person tickets include a copy of Excellent Advice for Living, compliments of the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund.
This program has 2 types of tickets available: In-person and online-only. Please pre-register to receive a link to the live-stream event.
Safety Protocols for in-person attendance:
- We follow best practices laid out by the CDC and state and local guidelines.
- We strongly recommend vaccination for guests, staff, and volunteers.
- Masks are strongly encouraged while indoors (if you do not have one and would like one, inquire at our front desk for a complimentary mask).
- We reserve the right to require different rules for specific events as necessary.
Our LEED Gold-certified building is designed to cool with outside air, using digitally controlled moveable windows and large ceiling fans. We are deploying additional HEPA filters inside to scrub the air. This is all in addition to increased cleaning of surfaces throughout the building.
We welcome donations made during registration to support the production of our online programming.
This program is supported by the Ken & Jaclyn Broad Family Fund. Complimentary copies of Excellent Advice for Living will be available to in-person attendees thanks to their support.

Kelly photo by Chris Michel.
All ticket sales are final and nonrefundable.
The Commonwealth Club of California
110 The Embarcadero
Taube Family Auditorium
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States

Kevin Kelly
Senior Maverick, Wired Magazine, Author, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier

In Conversation with DJ Patil
Former U.S. Chief Data Scientist; General Partner, GreatPoint Ventures; Member, The Commonwealth Club Board of Governors; Twitter @dpatil
5:30 p.m. doors open & check-in
6–7 p.m. program
7:15 p.m. book signing
(all times PDT)
COST
In-person:
$15 members (includes complimentary copy of Excellent Advice for Living)
$25 nonmembers (includes complimentary copy of Excellent Advice for Living)
Online:
Free for members
$10 nonmembers
$26 members with a book
$36 nonmembers with a book