The External Resumé: I grew up in Boston, where I attended the Roxbury Latin School and Harvard College. I attended the latter on a U.S. Navy scholarship, then spent four years as a naval officer, most of it as a liaison officer to the U.S. Congress. Afterwards I worked for a year on a Wall Street bond trading desk. This became the subject of my first book, Riding the Bull: My Year in the Madness at Merrill Lynch. During the technology boom I worked in several Internet start-up companies, and started one myself.

The Internal Resumé: As I grew older, I became aware of the many deep issues underlying, and determining, the life I was living. I began to explore the nature of capitalism, American society, the West, and the modern age. I poured some of the results into my second book, Is the American Dream Killing You?: How "the Market" Rules Our Lives.

Writing this book had an enormous effect on me. It is rare to have the time out to think about one's society in depth. Once I saw the market-driven excess in American life, and the many problems it has caused, I realized how deadly a lack of market knowledge can be. I have subsequently focused on exploring the nature of the market itself: what it is, as an aspect of reality, and how it is connected to the rest of society, to history, to nature, and beyond. This has led to various aspects of philosophy, my enduring passion.

The global financial crisis that began in 2007 has validated many of the views I have published since 1998. Ironically, it has also made me optimistic about positive change. The time is right to finally transform how we view the role of the market in society.