Michael Goff is a publisher, executive and entrepreneur who founded Out magazine and was its first editor in chief and President.[1] The child of diplomats, Goff himself was rejected by the State Department for being gay.[2]
He later was general manager of Microsoft MSN when it was first taken to the internet.[3] He inspired Visual AIDS to launch the red ribbon campaign with his column in Outweek. "The trigger was a column by Michael Goff in the American gay/lesbian magazine OutWeek. Mr Goff had looked around at all the yellow ribbons worn in support of the 1990-91 Gulf War, and he asked why there wasn't a ribbon for HIV/AIDS." [2] More recently he was Dan Gillmor's partner in citizen journalism company publishing Bayosphere and is involved with many media and tech companies and blogs, including Towleroad.com.[4]