Keynote
Keynote by Tim Ferriss, author of the Four Hour Work-Week.
Video
Timothy Ferriss
The 4-hour Workweek
Serial entrepreneur and ultravagabond Timothy Ferriss is author of the #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek bestseller, The 4-Hour Workweek. He has been featured by dozens of media, including The New York Times, The Economist, TIME, National Geographic Traveler, CNN, CBS, and MAXIM. He speaks six languages, runs a multinational firm from wireless locations worldwide, and has been a popular guest lecturer at Princeton University since 2003, where he presents entrepreneurship as a tool for ideal lifestyle design and world change.
Since his debut presentation on The 4-Hour Workweek at the world-famous SXSW Interactive conference on March 12, 2007, Tim has been invited to speak at some of the most innovative companies and universities in the world, ranging from Google and PayPal to Harvard Business School, MIT, Princeton University, the Wharton School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He has also been invited to speak and keynote at world-renowned technology summits including Supernova, FOO Camp, and the Web 2.0 Exposition, where he shared the stage with figures like Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board of Google, and Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.
Tim has been profiled in The Success Principles, the New York Times bestseller written by Jack Canfield, and is a main character in the upcoming feature-length documentary “As Seen on TV,” produced by Emmy Award winner Dan Partland.
As a professional polymath, he has amassed a diverse roster of credentials and experience:
- Princeton University guest lecturer in High-Tech Entrepreneurship and Electrical Engineering
- First American in history to hold a Guinness World Record in tango (video)
- Advisor to more than 30 world record holders in professional and Olympic sports
- National Chinese kickboxing champion (video)
- Glycemic Index (GI) researcher Political asylum researcher and activist
- MTV breakdancer in Taiwan
- Hurling competitor in Ireland
- Actor on hit TV series in mainland China and Hong Kong
Tim received his BA from Princeton University in 2000, where he studied in the Neuroscience and East Asian Studies departments. He developed his nonfiction writing with Pulitzer Prize winner John McPhee and formed his life philosophies under Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe.
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Comments
I’m very glad this was on the program, just bummed I missed the first few minutes.
Tim Ferriss is quite articulate and clearly a smart guy but the keynote was disappointing, full of rhetoric and with no elements of novelty whatsoever. As he said himself: ”...you should not try to please everyone…”. I’m no doubt on the “not pleased” side.
Couldn’t get as far as reviewing the content because the presentation was incredibly poor and somnolent, let alone the poor acoustics. The last thing one needs at the end of the day is a monotonous, low energy “keynote” (it was really a plenary interview, not a keynote.)
I read his book some time ago; he seems like an interesting guy. Shame none of that came across as I was anticipating an exciting talk, perhaps on his recent writings about Stoicism, etc. Instead he was asked a bunch of banal questions and responded to them with as much enthusiasm as a sloth could muster. Dull, dull, dull.
I thought the content was great. The format was good and I found the discussion interesting and thought provoking.
I think the point was to find a topic tangential to actual programming but that still had interesting implications. I think the idea of reevaluating how we spend our time is relevant and useful. I enjoyed this talk.
Great talk, terrible acoustics.
I thought the format was fine and I don’t know why anyone would care that that Tim hadn’t specifically prepared anything. My only issue was that Tim was often hard to understand because he was just using a conversational tone. If David was the the only one meant to hear, that would be fine, but I think the more relaxed atmosphere led to speaking with a voice not so well suited for being mic’ed.
Interesting idea with the fireside chat, but David could direct the conversation better and try to make it more relevant. It’s a little too pie in the sky.
Diaspointed with this keynote. Doesn’t feel like Tim prepared anything special before hand.