Tim Ferris

Productivity guru, author


Tim Ferriss is author of bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek, a self-improvement program of four steps: defining aspirations, managing time, creating automatic income and escaping the trappings of the 9-to-5 life.

.Why you should listen to him: .Tim Ferris brings an analytical, yet accessible, approach to the challenges of self-improvement and career advancement through what he calls "lifestyle design." His 2007 book, The 4-Hour Workweek, and his lectures on productivity are stuffed with moving, encouraging anecdotes -- often from his own life -- that show how simple decisions, made despite fears or hesitation, can make for a drastically more meaningful day-to-day experience at work, or in life.

Word-of-blog chatter in Silicon Valley may have propelled his book to bestselling success, but Ferriss himself takes a fervid stance against the distractions of technologies like email and PDAs, which promote unnecessary multitasking.

Following the success of his book, Ferriss has become a full-time angel investor.

"[Ferriss] has become a pet guru of Silicon Valley, precisely by preaching apostasy in the land of shiny gadgets: just pull the plug. Crawl out from beneath the reams of data. Stand firm against the torrent of information."  NYT's