After more than three decades working in technology, Mike Berkley is ready to retire.
Berkley announced his decision in a video posted to a social media platform, during which he reflected on his 30 years in the technology field, including his development of Avid’s Pro Tools audio production software.
“Every single job I’ve had has been focused on technology’s impact on media,” Berkley said in the video. “The last 30 years have been a wild ride in the media industry. If you think about it, every aspect of content has been transformed, whether it’s the content formats or production or distribution or the business models of content, it’s all been upended by technology in the last 30 years, and I’d say it’s even more wild to think I may have personally played a small part in these dramatic transformations.”
Berkley’s technology career started at Kaiser Permanente, a health care provider with offices primarily on the West Coast, where he worked as a systems architect. From there, he moved his way up the ladder within the technology industry, holding various roles at Comcast, Spotify, Viacom (now Paramount Global), MoviePass and the financial news publication Axios.
In 2020, Berkley joined sports-centric streaming service Fubo as its full-time chief product officer, helping the company build out and deploy various design, product and engineering systems that power the cable TV alternative today.
“This was a hard decision because I love technology and I love building products,” Berkley said in a statement. “It was also a hard decision because I love Fubo, and retiring impacts many people beyond me at the company. But it’s clear that Fubo is in a strong position to thrive without me, with David Gandler’s and Alberto Horihuela’s fearless leadership and the fantastic tech team that remains in place, led by Eric Renard as CTO, Isaac Josephson as SVP Product, and Dan Sormaz as SVP Design.”
Berkley said he was looking forward to seeing how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts the technology space over the next five years — and, in his retirement video, Berkley hinted that the world may not have heard the last from him, even as he heads into retirement.
Instead, Berkley plans to spend some time developing content of his own — music, filmmaking or photography, or some combination of the three. He also vowed to continue posting to social media, updating his thousands of followers on his creative hobbies along the way.
