Background and career
Seth W. Godin, also known by his pen name F. X. Nine (born 1960), is an American author, marketing expert, entrepreneur, and former dot-com business executive.
Godin graduated from Williamsville East High School in Williamsville, New York, in 1978. He attended in Tufts University, where he graduated with a degree in computer science and philosophy. He subsequently earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, Godin invested $20,000 of his own money to establish Seth Godin Productions, a book-packaging business that he operated from a studio apartment in New York City. He later co-founded Yoyodyne, a company specializing in permission marketing, with Mark Hurst. The company was named after the fictional Yoyodyne corporation featured in the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
Yoyodyne, launched in 1995, used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August 1996, Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. In 1998, he sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo! for $29.6 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing. In March 2006, Godin launched Squidoo. By July 2008, Squidoo had become one of the 500 most visited sites in the world. In 2014, it was sold to HubPages. Godin founded altMBA, a 4-week online workshop, in 2015. He also runs a podcast called Akimbo.
Forbes Business Book of the Year, 2004 for Free Prize Inside New York Times, USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Dip Business Week bestseller, The Dip Business Week named Linchpin among its "20 of the best books by the most influential thinkers in business" on November 13, 2015. American Marketing Association's Marketing Hall of Fame, 2018 Time 25 best blogs of 2009 The 2018 Jack Covert Award for Contribution to the Business Book Industry Winner [1]
Godin and his wife Helene live in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. They have two adult sons.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
