Researchers in the life sciences are posting their work to preprint servers at an unprecedented and increasing rate, sharing papers online before (or instead of) publication in peer-reviewed journals. Richard Sever is an experienced life sciences editor and Co-Founder of the preprint servers bioRxiv which is part of this revolution. After receiving a degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University, Richard obtained his PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He then moved into editorial work, first as an editor at Current Opinion in Cell Biology and later Trends in Biochemical Sciences. He subsequently served as Executive Editor of Journal of Cell Science, before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2008.