David Kirkpatrick was the founder, host, and program director for Fortune’s Brainstorm conference series from 2001 through 2006 in Aspen, and for the Brainstorm Tech conferences in 2007, 2008 & 2009. In June, Simon & Schuster will publish his book The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World. At Fortune, he wrote a column about matters technological entitled Fast Forward. Kirkpatrick is a big believer in conferences, and regularly attends the World Economic Forum in Davos, DLD in Munich, TED, D, and other seminal events. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.