Before joining The Times, Bowles worked at “VICE News Tonight” on HBO, where she was an on-air Correspondent, working on segments about venture capitalists and tech companies, and traveling the world on a broad range of assignments.
She previously worked at The Guardian and Recode, and covered, among other things, Ellen Pao’s discrimination suit against venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Bowles began her journalism career as an intern at the San Francisco Chronicle, where she started in the Style section covering people and nightlife, before joining the Business section to write about start-ups and city life.
Bowles has a keen eye for the Silicon Valley that titans would prefer you never see. Elon Musk called her a TMZ reporter after she quoted him talking about the show “Silicon Valley.” In a Guardian story, she once described how Eric Schmidt wore a top hat and vest made of mirrors at an elite desert event that attendees called “Burning Man for the one percent.”
Bowles has also looked at Silicon Valley’s influence on American culture, writing about teens dropping out of high school to follow their digital dreams.
A graduate of Columbia University, Bowles is also that rare thing in the San Francisco Bay Area these days: a native.