Josh Kaufman

Josh Kaufman is the bestselling author of books on business, entrepreneurship, skill acquisition, productivity, creativity, applied psychology, and practical wisdom. About Josh »

About Josh Kaufman

joshkaufman-aboutPhoto credit: Justin Patterson

Official Biography

Josh Kaufman is the author of three bestselling books:

Josh's research focuses on business, entrepreneurship, skill acquisition, productivity, creativity, applied psychology, and practical wisdom. His unique, multidisciplinary approach to business mastery and rapid skill acquisition has helped millions of readers around the world learn essential concepts and skills on their own terms.

Josh has been featured as the #1 bestselling author in Business & Money, as ranked by Amazon.com, and his books have sold over a million copies worldwide.

Josh's TEDx talk on The First 20 Hours is one of the top 25 most-viewed TED talks published to date, with over 22 million views on YouTube.

Josh's research has been featured by The New York Times, The BBC, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Fortune, Forbes, Time, BusinessWeek, Wired, Fast Company, Financial Times, HarvardBusiness.org, The World Economic Forum, Inside Higher Ed, Lifehacker, MarketWatch, The Independent, Bloomberg TV, PBS Next Avenue, CCTV, and CNN's Sanjay Gupta MD.

Josh has been a featured speaker at The Aspen Ideas Festival, Stanford University, World Domination Summit, Pioneer Nation, Microconf, BaconBiz, Google, and IBM.

JoshKaufman.net was named one of the "Top 100 Websites for Entrepreneurs" by Forbes in 2013.

About Josh Kaufman's Books


The Personal MBA

The Personal MBA has been featured as the #1 bestseller in Business Training and Business Management on Amazon.com. The widely-acclaimed Personal MBA manifesto and business reading list has been downloaded over 5 million times via personalmba.com.

On publication, the international edition of The Personal MBA was the the #1 bestselling nonfiction book in the United Kingdom, and remained #1 for two consecutive months. The Personal MBA has also been used as a textbook for business courses at Stanford University, New York University, Howard University, and Portland State University.

The audiobook edition of The Personal MBA was named "Best of Audible" in the business category by Audible.com in 2012, and was honored as a finalist in the 2013 Audio Publishers Association's "Audie" awards, the "Grammys" of the audio publishing industry.

PersonalMBA.com has been visited over 5 million times by readers all over the world since its founding in 2005. Josh's research has directly saved prospective business students millions of dollars in unnecessary tuition, fees, and interest by providing an effective, affordable, and debt-free method of learning fundamental business principles.


The First 20 Hours

The First 20 Hours has been featured as the #1 bestseller in Business Self-Improvement, Educational Psychology, and Personal Transformation on Amazon.com. Josh's TEDx talk on The First 20 Hours has been viewed over 22 million times worldwide on YouTube, making it one of the top 25 most-viewed TED talks published to date.

The First 20 Hours, details a universal, field-tested method of rapid skill acquisition designed to help readers pick up rewarding new skills in record time. Used by readers to learn everything from piloting airplanes to sumo wrestling, The First 20 Hours helps readers pick up useful and rewarding new skills as fast as humanly possible.

The First 20 Hours was an instant international bestseller, and the book has been translated into six languages.


How to Fight a Hydra

How to Fight a Hydra, a short story about the nature of ambition, risk, uncertainty, and fear of the unknown, has been featured as the #1 bestseller in Modern Philosophy on Amazon.com.


Career Highlights

Prior to full-time research and writing, Josh worked in brand management for Procter & Gamble's Home Care division, where he lead multi-million dollar projects that encompassed P&G’s entire value chain, from new product development to delivering in-store marketing campaigns for key customers like Walmart, Target, and Costco. Before leaving P&G, Josh spearheaded the development of P&G’s global online marketing measurement strategy.

Since leaving P&G, Josh has advised business owners in a wide variety of industries, including technology, entertainment, publishing, manufacturing, fitness, academia, healthcare, and government services.


Current Work

Josh's current projects involve online training programs and ongoing research in entrepreneurship, creativity, and problem-solving.

For interviews, speaking, consulting, and inquiries, check Josh's current status.

The Personal MBA
The First 20 Hours
How to Fight a Hydra