In 1984, Eric Utne founded Utne Reader, a digest of new ideas and fresh perspectives percolating in the arts, culture, politics, business, and spirituality. With the tag line "The Best of the Alternative Press," the magazine grew to more than 300,000 paid circulation, and later promoted the Neighborhood Salon Association to revive the endangered art of conversation and start a revolution in people's living rooms. But who is the man behind it all? Here the Minnesota visionary looks back on the hopes and excesses of the Me Decade, the idealism and setbacks of the entrepreneurial 1990s, and the promise and perils of the digital age, to reveal where his lifelong search for hope has led him.