Discover the Best Books Written by Timothy Ferriss

Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He became well-known through his 4-Hour self-help book series—including The 4-Hour Work Week, The 4-Hour Body, and The 4-Hour Chef—that focused on lifestyle optimizations, but he has since reconsidered this approach.

Ferriss grew up in East Hampton, New York. Throughout childhood, Ferriss experienced poor health, sparking an interest in self-improvement. After graduating from St. Paul's School, Ferriss matriculated at Princeton University, earning a B.A. in East Asian studies in 2000. His senior thesis was titled Acquisition of Japanese Kanji: Conventional Practice and Mnemonic Supplementation, under the supervision of Seiichi Makino. 

After graduating from Princeton, Ferriss worked in sales at a data storage company. In 2001, Ferriss founded BrainQUICKEN, an internet-based nutritional supplements business, while still employed at his prior job. He sold the company, then known as BodyQUICK, to a London-based private equity firm in 2010. He has stated that The 4-Hour Workweek was based on this period.

Ferriss has been an angel investor and advisor to startups. He invested or advised in such startups as StumbleUpon, Posterous, Evernote, DailyBurn, Shopify, Reputation.com, Trippy, and TaskRabbit. He is a pre-seed money advisor to Uber, co-founded by Garrett Camp, the founder of StumbleUpon, which Ferriss also advised.

Ferriss has written five books, The 4-Hour Workweek (2007, expanded edition 2009), The 4-Hour Body (2010), The 4-Hour Chef (2012), Tools of Titans (2016), and Tribe of Mentors (2017). In 2017, Tim Ferriss gave the TED talk "Why you should define your fears instead of your goals." In 2019, Forbes called Tim's "4-Hour" advice "everything that's wrong with the modern world" because it contributes to the idea that people's success is about "[figuring] out how to most attractively package their shortcuts and fake-outs" more than actual accomplishment.