A "Silicon Valley pioneer,"[3] Gulker was "instrumental in introducing the digital publishing era to the newspaper industry"[4] and was a central figure in the early history of blogging.

He worked as a dishwasher, cab driver, tow truck operator and barman[5] before he was hired in 1978 as a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner,[6] where the photography department came to view him as "one of its brightest stars.

[9] Gulker moved to Menlo Park, CA,[10] after the Herald-Examiner closed in 1989,[11] and joined the San Francisco Examiner, where he initially served as picture editor[12] and led the photography staff's transition from film to digital cameras.

[22][23][24] In 1994, Gulker's editorial workflow system, dubbed the "virtual newsroom", was demonstrated at both Seybold shows[20][25][26] and supported the creation of "a real Internet newspaper that used the 'Net throughout the process from story and photo solicitation to delivery.

The Electric Examiner became a focus of attention in the first two weeks of November 1994, when San Francisco's two major newspapers were hit by a strike in which some 2,600 journalists, editors, lorry drivers, press operators and paper handlers walked off their jobs.

[38] For the duration of the strike, Gulker's operation, which remained "heavily dependent on wire-service stories"[39] for lack of contributing journalists and editors, was the official online version of San Francisco's two largest newspapers.

Gulker, anticipating the work of Jorn Barger, was the first to propose a network of bloggers and pioneered two of the most effective means through which blogging emerged as a social medium, the blogroll and link attribution.

[53] From 1997 until 2003, Gulker contributed his column "The View from Silicon Valley" to the weekly technology supplement of the British newspaper The Independent, in which he distinguished himself through "sharp wit and literary ability".

[58] In his final years, despite his advancing paralysis, he traveled to France, took a tour of the American South, visited friends and shared his experiences as a cancer patient via his blog.