Ramit Sethi

Current

• Co-founder and VP of Marketing at PBwiki
• Founder, Instructor, and Writer at IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com (Sole Proprietorship)

Past

• Consultant at Omidyar Network
• Director of Special Projects at Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab
• Consultant at Storm Ventures (venture capital)

• Viral Marketing Architect at AuctionDrop
• Intern, Innovation and Political Marketing at Seth Godin Enterprises (Sole Proprietorship)

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2 more...

Education

• Stanford University
• Stanford University
• Oxford University

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Recommended

8 people have recommended Ramit

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Marketing and Advertising

Websites

• My Website
• My Blog
• My Company

Ramit Sethi’s Summary

For detailed info, please see http://www.ramitsethi.com.

I'm interested in technology, psychology, and creating communities.

I'm a co-founder of PBwiki, where I run marketing and usability.

I've just co-authored a book teaching companies how to effectively recruit college students, which will be published by Portfolio/Penguin in August 2007.

My second book is on personal finance for young people. It will be published by Workman in 2008.

I'm always interested to meet new people. Please see my Web page for more info about my work (http://www.ramitsethi.com) and feel free to get in touch.

Ramit Sethi’s Specialties:

marketing, usability, design, personal finance

Ramit Sethi’s Experience

• Co-founder and VP of Marketing

  PBwiki

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

  July 2005 — Present (4 years 1 month)

  We launched PBwiki in 2005, making it easy to create a wiki -- as a peanut butter sandwich. We now host more pages than (English) Wikipedia, and more business/educational wikis than anyone else. http://www.PBwiki.com.
  
  I run marketing and usability for PBwiki, which involves a focus on the user experience and viral marketing. I also handle strategic partnerships.

• Founder, Instructor, and Writer

  IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com (Sole Proprietorship)

  (Sole Proprietorship; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  September 2002 — Present (6 years 11 months)

  After receiving my first scholarship in high school, I invested it in the stock market and immediately lost 50%. That's when I decided to learn something about personal finance. Since then...
  
  I've designed a personal-finance curriculum that I call I Will Teach You To Be Rich. It's about investing sensibly for the long term and includes banking, budgeting, saving, and investing.
  
  I've taught this 1-hour class to over 3,000 students in person, all across the nation. Out of all the things I do, this is probably my favorite thing of all.
  
  I also created IWillTeachYouToBeRich.com, a blog providing free personal-finance advice. Since I started it over a year ago, it's been featured in the Wall Street Journal and now gets thousands of visitors per day.
  
  If you're interested in having me speak at your company, please check out http://seminars.iwillteachyoutoberich.com.

• Consultant

  Omidyar Network

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Philanthropy industry)

  April 2005 — September 2006 (1 year 6 months)

  Omidyar Network is a "mission-based investment group committed to fostering individual self-empowerment on a global scale" (it's Pierre Omidyar's organization to effect social change).
  
  Previously, I consulted on social psychology here. Later, I sourced and evaluated investment opportunities.

• Director of Special Projects

  Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab

  (Educational Institution; 1-10 employees; Research industry)

  June 2001 — August 2006 (5 years 3 months)

  Captology (Computers as Persuasive Technologies) involves the combination of technology and persuasion.
  
  I've been a researcher and director in the Lab, where I've created experimental methodologies, analyzed data, and communicated our findings to others.
  
  More recently, I spoke about persuasive technology in places like Japan and around the Bay area.
  
  Read more: http://captology.stanford.edu

• Consultant

  Storm Ventures (venture capital)

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Venture Capital & Private Equity industry)

  July 2005 — December 2005 (6 months)

  Storm brought me on to help get everyone up to speed on how young people are using technology. What's this Web 2.0 thing? Why are social networks important (and are they really just a fad?). Are college kids afraid of being sued for downloading music? How do mobile phones fit into the picture?
  
  I made presentations and brought in experts to share the viewpoints of my generation.
  
  Now here's the corporate version: Focused on emerging Internet technologies & investment evaluation. Worked closely with entire firm to source and evaluate deals.

• Viral Marketing Architect

  AuctionDrop

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

  June 2004 — April 2005 (11 months)

  I worked first as an intern, then was hired to stay on as a consultant to the CEO.
  
  My initial job was to devise a viral-marketing strategy for AuctionDrop. After that, I studied and recommended changes for the end-to-end customer experience.

• Intern, Innovation and Political Marketing

  Seth Godin Enterprises (Sole Proprietorship)

  (Sole Proprietorship; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  June 2003 — September 2003 (4 months)

  I was Seth's first-ever intern. I managed this by cold-calling him and convincing him that I could do it.
  
  Since then, Seth has realized the value of interns and continues to hire them even today.
  
  We worked on the book Free Prize Inside, which became a New York Times bestseller (and a WSJ bestseller, too).
  
  I met/interviewed Fortune 500 CEOs and other innovators across industries and organizations.
  
  I was also a member of the strategy team for political-marketing site, which used classic persuasion and viral-marketing elements.

Ramit Sethi’s Education

• Stanford University

  BA, MA , Science Technology and Society, social psychology, sociology , September 2000 — June 2005

  Coursework included theoretical and applied persuasion, entrepreneurship, computer science, human-computer interaction research and design, psychology, and policy analysis of the impact of emerging technologies on society.
  
  I wrote a comedy column and ran projects in social entrepreneurship, captology, personal finance, and religious studies.

• Stanford University

  2000 — 2004

• Oxford University

  Social influence and persuasion September 2002 — December 2002

  I studied social influence and persuasion in an in-depth tutorial, and ate horrible, horrible food. My papers are online at http://www.RamitSethi.com.

Additional Information

Ramit Sethi’s Websites:

• My Website
• My Blog
• My Company

Ramit Sethi’s Groups:

•    Earlystage.com Entrepreneurs
•    Harvard Business School Technology Alumni
•    Stanford University Alumni
•    PBwiki

Ramit Sethi’s Honors:

Frank H. Buck Scholar