Werner Erhard Biography

“Millions have experienced the ideas of Werner Erhard, one of the most incisive and insightful thinkers of our generation.”
-David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford University, NY Times bestselling author

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“The profound impact of Werner Erhard’s work on culture and society is a manifestation of an incredible insight, the experience of being.  Erhard has at times described aspects of his method as ruthless compassion, and like all forms of compassion, evident here is a fundamental motivating desire to alleviate the suffering of others.”
-James R. Doty, Professor of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, MD Founder & Director, The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education

Werner Erhard is a critical thinker who has influenced the academic community worldwide with his revolutionary ideas that were first expressed in The est Training. He introduced the language of transformation and has had an enormous impact as a thought leader, humanitarian and business man. Currently Werner Erhard devotes his time to speaking, publishing his ideas in academic papers and developing courses and other materials on the topics of transformation, integrity, performance, and leadership for Universities and schools such as Harvard University, The University of Rochester, Erasmus Academie, University of Southern California, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Dartmouth College, University of British Columbia and Clemson University College of Business.

Werner Erhard's life is best understood through his ideas and their application to people's lives

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“Theory and Practice: Ways of seeing what one claims to be the truth of some intended object of consciousness and ways of applying this truth to one’s everyday existence in order to cultivate wisdom, goodness, self-realization, and justice. The dialogical teachings of Werner Erhard speak to the importance of this relationship and its ontological significance.”
-Michael J. Hyde, University Distinguished Professor of Communication Ethics, Wake Forest University, author of Perfection: Coming to Terms with Being Human

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Werner Erhard started his business career during his teens selling cars for Lee Iacocca at a dealership that Mr. Iacocca owned in Pennsylvania. Werner Erhard went on to become the youngest vice-president in the history of Grace & Co., a Fortune 50 company, in its division Parents Magazine Cultural Institute.

In October 1971, Werner Erhard established a new enterprise with his creation of The est Training in San Francisco, California. Along with his colleagues he established Erhard Seminars Training in 1971, and in 1975 est, an educational corporation, and in 1991 Werner Erhard & Associates.

Werner Erhard established the Werner Erhard Foundation in 1973 as an expression of his commitment to transforming the quality of life for all human beings, and as a way for graduates of The est Training to participate in making a difference in their local and world communities.  The entire Board of Directors, including Werner Erhard, served the Foundation pro bono. Werner Erhard committed a significant amount of time and resources raising money for the Foundation.

Werner Erhard founded over a dozen separate charities and has been recognized for his commitment to humanity with the Mahatma Gandhi Humanitarian Award in 1988 and the Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2003.

Time Magazine said of Erhard on March 7, 2011:

"It was Werner Erhard who created the first modern transformation when he founded est seminars in 1971. It’s a tribute to the power of his central concept that more than 20 years after he sold his ideas to a group of employees Landmark is still the natural first stop in any transformation tour."

The Financial Times said of Erhard on April 28, 2012:

"Erhard’s influence extends far beyond the couple of million people who have done his courses."

Werner Erhard’s ideas used to be accessible only through participating in a program; they are now accessible to everyone via his academic papers published at SSRN.and publications available through organizations such as the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Columbia University's Journal: Capitalism and Society published Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen’s work on Integrity.

The Center on Capitalism and Society brings together leading scholars in economics business, and finance and law to study capitalist institutions their effectiveness and weaknesses in order to get some answers to such basic questions about capitalism - its working, its dynamism and the instability it may cause, its inclusiveness or lack thereof and its role in a democracy.

Werner Erhard was profiled in The New York Times in November 2015: 

Quoting Werner Erhard, “Maybe that whole thing in me around which the universe revolves isn’t so central!.... Maybe life is not about the self but about self-transcendence!” 

“Harvard economist Michael Jensen, who is famous in financial circles for championing the concepts of shareholder value and executive stock options… said he considers Mr. Erhard ‘one of the great intellectuals of the century.’”

The impact that Werner Erhard's work and ideas have made is acknowledged in these letters.

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human

Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human is an unprecedented study of the ideas and methods developed by the thinker Werner Erhard. In this book those ideas and methods are revealed by presenting in full an innovative program he developed in the 1980s called The Forum--available in this book as a transcript of an actual course led by Erhard in San Francisco in December of 1989. Since its inception Erhard’s work has impacted the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Central to this study is a comparative analysis of Erhard’s rhetorical project, The Forum, and the philosophical project of Martin Heidegger. Through this comparative analysis the authors demonstrate how each thinker’s work sometimes parallels and often illuminates the other.

Praise for Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human:

"This book is powerful, imaginative, frustrating, amusing, threatening, and enlightening——all at the same time. It also has the power to transform your life.” Jonathan D. Moreno, University of Pennsylvania Professor of Ethics

"The profound impact that Werner Erhard has had, and continues to have, on culture and society is a manifestation of an incredible insight that Erhard has been making available to the public for decades: the experience of being. This book presents that experience for the first time--both through a transcript of an actual course led by Erhard, along with a study of his methodology for delivering that experience. On display are spectacular moments where Erhard exercises what he has sometimes described as ruthless compassion, and like all forms of compassion, at work is a fundamental motivating desire to alleviate the suffering of others." James R. Doty, M.D.Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University

Werner Erhard: A Timeline of Ideas