Hi, I’m Michael Ellsberg, stand-up comedian in the Bay Area underground party scene. Find some of my comedy here: YouTube and Instagram.
Previously, I wrote three books on personal and career development: The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won’t Learn in College About How to Be Successful (Penguin, 2011); The Last Safe Investment: Spending Now to Increase Your True Wealth Forever co-authored with Bryan Franklin (Penguin, 2016); and The Power of Eye Contact (HarperCollins, 2010).
I am the co-editor (with Jan Thomas) of Truth and Consequence: Reflections on Catastrophe, Civil Resistance, and Hope, a book of my father’s previously unpublished writing (Bloomsbury, 2026).
I’ve produced three live albums by my favorite musician, singer-songwriter-pianist Adey Bell, based on concerts I organized: Adey @ Ellsbergs (2023), Surrender (2025), and Jezebel (2026).
I was born in San Francisco in 1977, grew up in Berkeley, and graduated from Brown in 1999 with a degree—that I’ve never used—in international relations. I now live back in Berkeley.
Find me on (more) social media here: Substack, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and SoundCloud.
Other Stuff I’ve Done:
- The most widely-read thing I’ve ever written is How I Overcame Bipolar II (and Saved My Own Life) on Forbes.com. (1M+ views)
- I wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, Will Dropouts Save America?
- I’ve spoken at Google twice, the first time about The Education of Millionaires, and the second time about The Last Safe Investment. I’ve also spoken at Dartmouth, at Awesomeness Fest, at the Thiel Fellows Retreat, at TEDxSF, at the Wanderlust festival, and at the Commonwealth Club of California, among other places.
- I collaborated with Dr. Marc Gerstein on Flirting With Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental (Union Square Press, 2008)
- Before my books, I was the creator of Eye Gazing Parties, a series of singles events based on eye contact, which attracted press coverage from the New York Times, Elle, CBS News, the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco magazine, the Washington Post, and on Tim Ferriss’s blog.
- I edit and maintain my father’s website Ellsberg.Net