Ryan Holiday is an American author, marketer, entrepreneur, and founder of creative advisory firm Brass Check. He is a media strategist, former director of marketing at American Apparel, a media columnist, and editor at large for the New York Observer.

He briefly attended the University of California, Riverside and studied political science and creative writing. He worked for Tucker Max on several controversial media pranks including boycotting Max’s work as part of a movie launch.

He is the author of several books and wrote for Forbes, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, The Columbia Journalist Review, etc.

His first book, Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator tries to explore flaws in the current online journalism system and was on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. He wrote the book Growth Hacker Marketing which explored non-traditional marketing efforts as more effective.

In 2014, he became the New York Observer’s editor at large. Holiday went on to publish several other books such as The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego is the Enemy, which explores the egotism of several historical figures.

The New York Times has credited Holiday with the increasing popularity of stoicism.