Ramit Sethi was one of the earliest bloggers to inspire me when I first started writing Thrilling Heroics and building my online network. He was a graduate of Stanford University who’d studied technology and psychology, co-founded Silicon Valley startup PBworks, and was writing the hugely successful I Will Teach You To Be Rich blog to show college students and young professionals how to take control of their personal finances and get into entrepreneurship.
Although he’s based in the Bay Area, I reached out to him and learned that he’s originally from my hometown in Northern California. The first time I met Ramit in person was one chilly winter day in 2006 when he was in Sacramento to visit his family, and I had the chance to interview him about his education, entrepreneurship experience, and his perspectives on new media.
One of the first bold moves Ramit made in his career was to call up Seth Godin and negotiate a job opportunity with him! He later consulted with Omidyar Network, the philanthropic social innovation firm started by Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar. He got himself featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR, ABC News, CNBC, and more, sharing personal finance tips and bolstering his readership at I Will Teach You To Be Rich to over 250,000 visitors per month!
In March, Ramit published his book by the same title, which instantly hit #1 on Amazon and made him a NYT bestselling author. His educational background in social psychology translated well into a book that helps you make real behavioral change:
At last, for a generation that’s materially ambitious yet financially clueless comes I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi’s 6-week personal finance program for 20-to-35-year-olds. A completely practical approach delivered with a nonjudgmental style that makes readers want to do what Sethi says, it is based around the four pillars of personal finance—banking, saving, budgeting, and investing—and the wealth-building ideas of personal entrepreneurship.
These days Ramit hangs out with Tim Ferriss (check out his feature on the 4-Hour Workweek blog about the psychology of money and how to set up an automated personal finance system, with great excerpts from Ramit’s book).
How could you ask for a better twentysomething role model for personal finance and entrepreneurship success?
I met up with Ramit a time or two in San Francisco since first meeting him in 2006, but I’ve been wanting to catch up with him for a video interview for a while now to see what has changed in the last three years. Just my luck, this week he’s turning the six-week personal finance program in his best-selling book into a real online bootcamp where he’ll take you by the hand through a step-by-step online curriculum to automate and optimize your finances before the end of 2009, so I offered to help him promote the bootcamp if he’d sit down and answer some questions for you guys here.
Check out the video interview below for the following:
- Learn more about the I Will Teach You To Be Rich 6-Week Personal Finance Bootcamp
- Entrepreneurship, experimentation & failure
- How the things you spend your money on reflect your values
- How Ramit negotiated a book deal from his blog
- How he promoted his book to #1 on Amazon and the New York Times bestseller list
- Personal finance & entrepreneurship tips for travelers & expats
- Learn about the I Will Teach You To Be Rich Scholarship for Social Innovation
To learn more about Ramit Sethi, social psychology, technology in business, scrappy startups, and x-man abilities, make sure you also read my 2006 interview with him.
Feature photo from You 2.0
Excellent post.
I have to say that I am usually very skeptical with books that are titled “I will teach you to be Rich” however after watching the video I can definitely say that my initial viewpoint skeptical viewpoint was unfounded.
Raimt comes across as an incredibly interesting and engaging, confident character that really knows his stuff. More importantly, in my opinion, he really lives and believes it and it’s ability to help others. He is the kind of guy I would enjoy spending time with and would trust, and all this from just a 20 minute video.
Cheers Cody for hosting and if you are reading these comments Ramit, I would love to get in touch.
Awesome interview Cody.
Ramit seems like a great business person. Video is so essential to connecting with people. It is really hard to identify the person behind writing, but video makes that so much easier.
Your pay back on the bootcamp is also very generous!
Awesome interview Cody. Great questions asked and equally insightful information answered back. Even more cool to me is that you, Ramit and his brother are also from Sacramento and they attended my high school…very motivating and great to see them, as well as you, pursue their mission and make their mark on the world.
Great interview Cody! You are looking good my man. I have a copy of Ramit’s book and I plan on applying the principles once I win the $10k prize from the weight loss competition!
It’s funny how small the world is despite how many miles apart we all are.
I’ve contacted Ramit a few times, a legit great guy, I didn’t think he crossed over into lifestyle design but I continue to be proved wrong. Awesome interview, the boot camp looks well worth it for anyone to carve out some extra dollars and set up smart planning investing going forward. Awesome link up.
will follow ramit sethi.. his tips were awesome..
His site’s got a controversial name like Tim Ferriss, but Ramit truly is an awesome guy with some tremendous accomplishments under his belt. Really knows his stuff.
Please remember if you signed up through my link here on Thrilling Heroics, make sure you email me at cody at thrillingheroics dot com with your receipt & transaction ID so I can give you your $75 bonus after the 30-day money-back guarantee.