Ferriss was born premature and grew up in East Hampton, New York. He graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies from Princeton University in 2000 after completing his senior thesis, 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 September 2020, he revealed in his podcast that he was sexually abused at the age of two.
Career
In 2001, Ferriss founded BrainQUICKEN, an internet-based nutritional supplements business, while still employed at his prior job.[10] 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.[13] Since writing his books, he has reevaluated his ideas about productivity, saying "I am not focused on maximizing productivity, because that begs the question: To what aim? I'm revisiting those questions and my answers to those questions during this time" and "Not everything that is meaningful can be measured."
Investing
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.
In 2013, Ferriss raised $250,000 to invest in Shyp by forming a syndicate on AngelList. Ferriss ended up raising over $500,000 through his backers, and Shyp raised a total of $2.1 million. In 2018, Shyp shut down and laid off all its employees.
In November 2013, Ferriss began an audiobook publishing venture, Tim Ferriss Publishing. The first book published was Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. Other books include Ego is the Enemy and The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday, Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, and What I Learned Losing A Million Dollars by Jim Paul and Brendan Moynihan.
In 2015, The New York Times listed Ferriss among their "Notable angel Investors" while CNN said he was "one of the planet's leading angel investors in technology."
Also in 2015, Ferriss declared a long vacation from new investing. He cited the stress of the work and a feeling his impact was "minimal in the long run", and said he planned to spend time on his writing and media projects. In 2017 he stated one of the reasons he moved from Silicon Valley was that, "After effectively 'retiring' from angel investing 2 years ago," he had no professional need to be in the Bay Area.
Books
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).
Tim Ferriss, the #1 New York Times best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, shares the ultimate choose-your-own-adventure book-a compilation of tools, tactics, and habits from 130+ of the world's top performers. From iconic entrepreneurs to elite
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
"This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and 'inside baseball' you won't find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests, and life lessons from new 'guests' you haven't met.
"What makes the show different is a relentless fo
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited (UK)
