Leo Laporte

Leo Laporte (; born November 29, 1956) is an American technology broadcaster, author, and entrepreneur, best known as the founder and owner of the TWiT.tv (This Week in Tech) podcast network, which he launched in 2005.

Laporte began his technology career in the 1980s as a software author and journalist. In the early 1990s, he hosted the syndicated radio show On Computers, which aired on over 60 stations. Laporte's television career began in the late 1990s when he co-hosted The Site, for which he earned an Emmy in 1997. He joined ZDTV (later TechTV) in 1998, co-hosting The Screen Savers and Call for Help until the network's acquisition by Comcast in 2004. From 2004 to 2022, he hosted the nationally syndicated radio program The Tech Guy, which aired on over 200 stations and focused on consumer technology advice. and grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. From 1973 to 1976, he studied Chinese history at Yale University before dropping out in his junior year to pursue a career in radio broadcasting, He began his association with computers with his first home computer, an Atari 400. From 1985 to 1988, he operated one of the first Macintosh-only bulletin board systems, MacQueue.

Radio and television From December 1977 to May 1998, Laporte hosted newstalk and interview shows on KGO, KSFO, and KNBR in San Francisco. He was a personality DJ on KLOK in San Francisco and San Jose and KMBY in Monterey.

In 1997, Laporte was awarded a Northern California Emmy for his role as Dev Null, a motion capture character on the MSNBC show The Site. had been canceled by Rogers Communications. The HOW TO Channel did not air the remaining episodes after it was announced the show had been canceled. Laporte's last new radio show was December 18, 2022 with reruns for the remainder of the year. Rich DeMuro later appeared on the show to announce that he would take over in January with a weekly show, recorded on Saturdays, called "Rich On Tech."

Laporte appeared on Friday mornings on KFI with Bill Handel, and previously on such shows as Showbiz Tonight, from Audible (Amazon), a sponsor.

Podcasting Laporte owns and operates a podcast network, TWiT.tv with his wife Lisa Laporte. Before the expansion to new facilities in 2011, Laporte said TWiT earned million (equivalent to $ in ) annually on a production cost of (equivalent to $ in ). In a 2012 Reddit posting, he commented that revenue was approaching million (equivalent to $ in ). The TWiT studios are located in Petaluma, California, where Laporte lives.