James Altucher

James Altucher
James Altucher
Born	(1968-01-23) January 23, 1968 United States
Residence	New York, New York
Alma mater	Cornell University Carnegie Mellon University
Known for	Entrepreneurship, blogging

James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, bestselling author, venture capitalist and podcaster.^[1] He has founded or cofounded more than 20 companies, including Reset Inc. and StockPickr and says he failed at 17 of them.^[2][3][4] He has published eleven books, and he is a frequent contributor to publications including The Financial Times, TheStreet.com, TechCrunch, Seeking Alpha, Thought Catalog, and The Huffington Post.^[5][6][7]

Career

Altucher graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in computer science in 1989.^[1][5][8] He later attended Carnegie Mellon University as a doctoral student in computer science.^[9][10] Altucher's first job after graduating was in the IT department of HBO. At one point, Altucher hosted an HBO program, III:am, where he roamed New York late at night to interview residents.^[1][6]

Altucher's entrepreneurial career began in 1996 when he founded Reset Inc., a web-design firm, while still working at HBO.^[11] His clients included Wu Tang Clan, American Express, Con Edison, Time Warner, and BMG.^[5][11]

In 1998, Altucher left HBO, sold Reset Inc. for approximately $10 million, and used the proceeds to fund new internet investments.^[2][3] Altucher has said he began this period with $15 million and lost it all in two years, which led him to reevaluate his approach to both business and life.^[2] During this time, Jim Cramer of TheStreet.com hired him to write about stocks and Altucher began trading for hedge funds.^[1]

From 2002–2005 he traded for several hedge funds, and from 2004–2006 he ran a fund of hedge funds.^[1][12][13] Currently, Altucher is managing director of Formula Capital, an asset management firm.^[14]

StockPickr

In 2006 Altucher founded the financial social network StockPickr.^[15][16] The website is a community-based trading website which offers stock picks, forums, and more.^[17][18] The website was named one of Time Magazine's 50 Best Websites of 2007 and sold to TheStreet.com that year for $10 million.^[19][20][21]

Investments

Altucher was a seed investor in Buddy Media, which later sold to Salesforce.com for $745 million.^[1][22] Altucher also has investments in bit.ly,^[5] Ticketfly, CTera, Acebucks, Cancer Genetics, Optimal (where he is a board member),^[23] and several other companies.^[24] Altucher previously worked for companies like 212 Ventures,^[10] Corporate Resource Services Inc, Stockpickr LLC, and Vaultus Mobile, having founded the last two.^[9][10]

Media

He was a weekly columnist for The Financial Times^[25] from 2004–2009 and has written articles for The Street.com,^[26] Seeking Alpha,^[27] and Daily Finance.^[28] He frequently appears on CNBC,^[29] and has written several books on investing. Altucher is a frequent guest contributor to Quora and The Daily Ticker feature on Yahoo! Finance & TechCrunch. On 14 February 2017, Altucher was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 1 in the list of 100 Most Influential Business Journalists.^[30][31]

Podcast

Altucher currently has two podcasts. On the weekly podcast The James Altucher Show, he interviews entrepreneurs, public figures, comedians, and more. His guests have included Mark Cuban, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Wayne Dyer, Adam Carolla, Leonard Kim, Scott Adams and Tim Ferriss.^[32]

In April 2014, Altucher began the daily podcast Ask Altucher, where he answers questions from callers.

On August 31, 2015, Altucher launched a new podcast with Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, called Question of the Day, based on questions from Quora.^[33] The show ended after episode 177 on September 8, 2016. ^[34]

Author

Altucher has written and published 17 books.^[35] Altucher's 2011 book, I Was Blind But Now I See, reached No. 1 in Amazon.com's motivational books section for 2011.^[1] Altucher's writing appears in such publications as the Financial Times,^[9] Wall Street Journal, TheStreet.com, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, TechCrunch, ThoughtCatalog, and Fidelity.com.^[10][36] He has appeared on CNBC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, Bloomberg TV, and CNN Radio.^[10][37]

Altucher launched his blog, Altucher Confidential, in October 2010. In the first year, the blog had over 5 million page views.^[38] Altucher's 2013 book, Choose Yourself, debuted on the Wall Street Journal Bestselling-Books list.^[7][39]

USA Today also named Choose Yourself among the 12 Best Business Books of All Time.^[40]

Publications

• Trade Like a Hedge Fund. John Wiley and Sons. 2004. ISBN 978-0-471-48485-1. 
• Trade like Warren Buffett. John Wiley and Sons. 2005. ISBN 978-0-471-65584-8. 
• SuperCash. John Wiley and Sons. 2006. ISBN 978-0-471-74599-0. 
• The Forever Portfolio: How to Pick Stocks That You Can Hold for the Long Run. Penguin Group. 2008. ISBN 978-1-59184-211-8. 
• The Wall Street Journal Guide to Investing in the Apocalypse: Make Money by Seeing Opportunity Where Others See Peril. HarperCollins. 2011. ISBN 978-0-06-200132-0. 
• I Was Blind But Now I See. CreateSpace. 2011. ISBN 978-1-4663-4795-3. 
• How To Be The Luckiest Person Alive!. CreateSpace. 2011. ISBN 978-1-4611-2070-4. 
• Choose Yourself. CreateSpace. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4903-1337-5. 
• The Power of No. Hay House, Inc. 2014. ISBN 978-1-4019-4587-9. 

References

External links

• James Altucher's personal blog
• James Altucher's articles at Techcrunch
• James Altucher's articles at The Huffington Post