Robert X. Cringely

On July 5, 2017, Stephens announced that he was effectively blind due to cataracts. Although he suggested that his eyesight would be restored in 10 days, as of August 14, 2017, he claimed he was still blind. On January 2, 2018, Stephens reported that his eye surgery was complete and that he could see again.

On October 13, 2017, Stephens posted a photo of his home taken as he and his family fled the Tubbs fire in Northern California. It is presumed that the home burned along with thousands of other homes.

InfoWorld.com continued to publish the "Robert X. Cringely" Notes From the Field column as a blog, written by technology journalist Daniel Tynan until August 3, 2015.

Stephens and his wife, Mary Alyce, have three sons, as of Christmas 2009: Channing, Cole, and Fallon. They moved from Charleston, South Carolina to Santa Rosa, California around the end of July 2011.

As Cringely, Stephens produced and hosted an Internet television show called NerdTV (2005–06) for PBS and, until late 2008, wrote an online column for the PBS website called I, Cringely: The Pulpit. On November 14, 2008, Stephens announced that he would stop contributing columns to PBS as of that December 15. He indicated that the move was his own decision "and not that of PBS, which has been nothing but good to me these many years". He also blogged for the Technology Evangelist site during 2007.

In 1998, it was revealed that Stephens had falsely claimed to have received a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and that he had been employed as a professor there. Stanford's administration stated that Stephens had only been a teaching assistant, and that while he had pursued a doctoral degree, he had not been awarded the degree. Stephens acknowleded that while he had received a master's degree in Communications and completed the coursework required for the Ph.D., he had not complete his dissertation. Asked about the resulting controversy, Stephens said that "[A] new fact has now become painfully clear to me: you don't say you have the Ph.D. unless you really have the Ph.D."

Stephens' writing as Robert X. Cringely regularly appears in publications such as Forbes, Newsweek, Success, The New York Times, Upside, and Worth. Stephens has also appeared as Cringely in two documentaries based on his writings: Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires (1996) and Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet (1998) and in a three-part documentary on PBS called Plane Crazy, in which he attempted to build an aircraft in 30 days and fly it when completed. The project quickly fell behind schedule and he became angry with the film crew. Eventually, he admitted defeat and the aircraft was cut up by Cringely. In the final episode, he builds an existing kit designed and assisted by Fisher Aero.

After a financial disagreement in 1995, Stephens was dismissed from Infoworld and was promptly sued by IDG to prevent him from continuing to use the Cringely trademark. A settlement was reached out of court that allowed him to use the name, so long as he did not contribute to competing technology magazines.

Mark Stephens was the third author to contribute to Infoworld under the Cringely pseudonym, the first two being Rory J. O'Connor and then Laurie Flynn. The original column, the first computer "gossip" column, was started by Mark Garetz and called According to Garetz; it was later taken over by John Dvorak. During Stephens' lengthy tenure (1987–1995), the character of Cringely changed dramatically (morphing from a private eye type to a slick, womanizing tech insider) and became an increasingly popular tech pundit after he published the book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition and Still Can't Get a Date (1992, ISBN 0-88730-855-4).

Stephens was born in 1953, in Apple Creek, Ohio. He earned a bachelor's degree from the College of Wooster in Ohio in 1975 and a Master's degree in Communication from Stanford University in 1979, where he also pursued work toward a doctorate. He served on the "Public's Right to Information Task Force" as part of the President’s Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island. He has claimed he was employee #12 at Apple, Inc., though Daniel Kottke also claims this number.