Paul Stiles

Paul Stiles is that rare writer whose breadth of real world experience encompasses several of the major institutions that have shaped our times. A Harvard graduate, he has served as an intelligence officer at the National Security Agency, worked on one of Wall Street’s top bond trading desks, and been the CEO of a successful Internet start-up company. He is also “a talented writer who can craft a precise metaphor, recreate dialogue, and communicate subtlety and emotion” (BusinessWeek ).

He has authored two books, each dealing, in different ways, with the market-driven nature of American life and the toll it is taking on our society. His Wall Street memoir, Riding the Bull: My Year in the Madness at Merrill Lynch, critically acclaimed for both style and substance, identified the deep corruption in the U.S. financial system several years before the age of corporate scandals.

Stiles’s Is the American Dream Killing You? How “the Market” Rules Our Lives, is a broader, ground-breaking look at how market excess impacts our entire society, including human health, the family, culture, the environment, religion, business, and more. Based on an original theory that explains the nature of the market, its controversial thesis is the product of a decade of research and writing, and has already received the highest praise.

A compelling, engaging speaker, Stiles is known for challenging audiences with deeply original, and refreshingly apolitical thinking on meaningful issues directly connected to their own lives.

Stiles divides his time between the United States and Spain’s Canary Islands, where he is researching his third book.

What is ‘the Market’? And What is it Doing to My Company?

Will the American Dream Kill Us? How ‘the Market’ Rules Our Lives

The Market vs. Democracy