When we first took notice of Timothy Ferriss (P ’00), he came across as an Aleksey-Vayner-esque megalomaniacal fraud. After all, his website was full of outlandish claims of personal accomplishment, and his book The 4-Hour Work Week (Amazon), or “4HWW” to those in the know, boasts that it will show you, “How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want.”

But it seems we may have to amend our initial impression of Ferriss from “spectacular charlatan” to “oddball entrepreneur” and maybe, just maybe, “lifestyle pioneer.” For one thing, as this incredible New York Times article explains, his book has become a huge hit with the nerds of Silicon Valley, and these guys are immune to gimmicky trends (except that one time)

From the Times article:

HIS methods include practicing “selective ignorance” – tuning out pointless communiqués, random Twitters, and even world affairs (Mr. Ferriss says he gets most of his news by asking waiters). Work crisis? Pay someone else to worry about it – ideally in Bangalore. On a bet, Mr. Ferriss even hired low-paid, high-skilled workers abroad to find him dates online. (It worked.)

Fact: I paid someone in Bangalore in to write this post for me. I am actually scuba-diving in Belize. Read the article, it’s pretty interesting, and check out his blog.