Adam Thierer

About Adam

Adam Thierer is a resident senior fellow with the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute in Washington, D.C. and a visiting senior fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

Since 1991, Adam has covered the policy implications of the digital revolution and published books on a wide range of topics including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, media regulation, and federalism. His most recent books include Permissionless Innovation: The Continuing Case for Comprehensive Technological Freedom (2016) and Evasive Entrepreneurs and the Future of Governance: How Innovation Improves Economies and Governments (2020).

Before joining R Street in 2022, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He also served as president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation and previously worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. He testifies regularly before Congress and state legislatures on online speech and innovation policy issues.

Adam has served on several blue-ribbon online safety commissions including the Harvard University Internet Safety Technical Task Force and the congressionally created Online Safety Technology Working Group, where he served as chair of the subcommittee on parental controls technologies. In 2008, he received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.” Adam has a master’s degree in international business management and a bachelor’s degree with a double major in political science and journalism.