William R. Robinson (Born November 30, 1958) is an American journalist and businessman. Since 1997 he has appeared regularly on CNN, PBS, Bloomberg, and the BBC. He also hosts a regular segment on SKY News in London. Robinson often provides commentary on companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, Google, and others.
Robinson has written regular columns for The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Register, Fortune Small Business, The Financial Times, Forbes.com, Upside Magazine, United Airlines' Hemispheres Magazine, easyJet Magazine, Marketing Magazine, Tornado Insider, and Cisco Systems' iQ Magazine.
Robinson has also interviewed many notable people in science and technology:
Robinson was born in White Plains, New York on November 30, 1958. His father was W. Rodman Robinson, a banker at Chemical Bank in New York City, and his mother was Barbara Robinson. At age 13, his parents divorced.
Robinson studied business in college, during which time he worked as a machinist, bartender and taxi driver. After college, Robinson worked at 5th Avenue Personnel Consultants, an employment agency in New York City. While scheduling a time for one of his clients to appear on CNN, Robinson decided to schedule a time for himself as well. His resulting appearance on CNN effectively launched his career in journalism.
Simultaneously, Robinson began to develop his career as a print journalist. His first regular column was titled "The Relentless Marketer" and was published in Fortune Small Business (FSB). This column both provided Robinson with much-needed exposure to his target readership (at the time, FSB had a circulation of approximately 3 million readers) and earned him the nickname "Relentless Bill". His next column was titled "On Location" and was published in Upside. Robinson's work on this column led him to focus on technology in his subsequent writings.