Adam Grant

Adam M. Grant (born August 13, 1981) is an American popular science author, and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania specializing in organizational psychology.

Early life and education Grant was born in the township of West Bloomfield, Michigan, on August 13, 1981, to a lawyer father and a teacher mother. He grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Grant participated in springboard diving and aspired to be a professional basketball player growing up.

He received a B.A. from Harvard College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan in organizational psychology. He worked as a professional magician during college.

Academic career Grant was hired by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to serve as an assistant professor of organizational behavior in 2007. After publishing a series of papers in academic journals, he was hired as an associate professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 2009, becoming the school's youngest tenured professor at age 28. He was ranked by students the best professor at the university from 2011 to 2017.

Business Grant appears in a leaked list of members of Peter Thiel’s secret society, Dialog.

Grant is the host of the WorkLife and ReThinking podcasts.

In 2017 Grant co-founded (along with University of Michigan professor Wayne Baker and entrepreneur Cheryl Baker) Give and Take, Inc., a company that offers services designed to help organizations implement the principles from his book Give and Take.

Grant is on the board of LeanIn.Org and chairs the Creative Advisory board of EXILE Content.

Personal life While in graduate school, Grant married Allison; the couple have two daughters and a son.

Books Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success (Viking, 2013) Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World (Viking, 2016) Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. with Sheryl Sandberg (Knopf, 2017) Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know (Penguin, 2021). Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things (Penguin, 2023).

Awards

2011 winner of the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. 2015, named Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.