At Harvard, Isaacson was the president of the Signet Society, a member of the Harvard Lampoon, and a resident of Lowell House. He attended New Orleans' Isidore Newman School, where he was student body president, Deep Springs College for the Telluride Association Summer Program (TASP), and Harvard University, where he majored in History and Literature and graduated in 1974. Isaacson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Betty 'Betsy' Lee (née Seff) and Irwin Isaacson. He was vice chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which oversaw the rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, chaired the government board that runs Voice of America, and was a member of the Defense Innovation Board.

Isaacson is a professor at Tulane University and an advisory partner at Perella Weinberg Partners, a New York City-based financial services firm. He is the co-author with Evan Thomas of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986) and the author of Kissinger: A Biography (1992), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), American Sketches (2009), Steve Jobs (2011), The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (2014), Leonardo da Vinci (2017) and The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race (2021).

He has been the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C., the chair and CEO of CNN, and the editor of Time.īorn in New Orleans, Louisiana, he attended Harvard University and the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar at Pembroke College.

Walter Seff Isaacson (born May 20, 1952) is an American author, journalist, and professor.

Da vinci by walter isaacson