William Randolph Hearst III was born on June 18, 1949. His Father was william Randolph Hearst Jr., and his paternal grandfather was william Randolph Hearst. He graduated from the Canterbury School in New Milford, CT in 1967. He graduated from Harvard University in 1972 with an AB degree in mathematics.

In 1976 he left the company to become the managing Editor of Outside magazine which was then being started by the Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner. He returned to the company and newspaper work in 1980. In 1992 he again left his job at the company, remaining on the board of Directors. The following year he succeeded his Father as a trustee of the trust that controls the company and chooses the Directors.

In 1984 Hearst proposed buying Macintosh 128K computers from college students who could buy them from Apple Computer with an academic discount, and reselling them with a $1500 profit. In 1996, he was a co-founder of the @Home Network Broadband Internet Service with Milo Medin, cable companies TCI, Comcast and Cox Cable where he served as the company's first chief executive officer. In 1995, he was named partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He sits on several boards of Directors of companies in which the firm has Investments, including Hearst-Argyle Television. He served as a member of the board of Directors of Juniper Networks until May 2008.

He became President of the william Randolph Hearst Foundation in early 2003.