He was named publisher of Forbes magazine in 1998[1] and has written three books, Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the Where of Their Happiness (2004), which made The Wall Street Journal business bestseller list, The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success (2014), and Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement (2019).

Karlgaard's books, articles, and speeches often focus on the fundamentals of business, the need for constant innovation, and the importance of building the right corporate culture.

Then in the early 1980s, he became a technical writer for the Electric Power Research Institute and a copywriter at Warr, Foote and Rose ad agency.

The first speaker was Robert Noyce, the inventor of the integrated circuit and cofounder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.

[2] Forbes ASAP attracted well-known writers such as Tom Wolfe, who in 1996 wrote a nine-thousand word essay called "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died.” In 1998, Karlgaard was named publisher of Forbes magazine and began writing a column entitled Digital Rules (later renamed Innovation Rules).

The book explores what it means to be a late bloomer in a culture obsessed with SAT scores and early success, and how finding one's way later in life can be an advantage to long-term achievement and happiness.

That year he flew his Cessna 172 single-engine four-seat airplane around the United States while researching his first book, Life 2.0.