Susan Cain

Cain has said she grew up on Long Island.⁠[1]

She is a member of Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry’s class of 1989.⁠[2]

She later graduated from Harvard Law School.⁠[3]

She has said she practiced corporate law for seven years, representing clients such as Goldman SachsGoldman SachsGoldman Sachs is an American financial services group headquartered in New York whose businesses include investment banking, securities trading, asset management, and wealth management. It traces its origins to the commercial paper business Marcus Goldman founded in 1869; it listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999 under the ticker GS and became a bank holding company in 2008. David Solomon serves as chairman and chief executive officer.Open the full entry and General Electric, and then became a negotiations consultant training people from hedge fund managers and TV producers to college students negotiating their first salaries, with clients including Merrill Lynch and Shearman & Sterling; she quit corporate law at 33 to become a writer.⁠[4]

She worked at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb, where Paul Scibetta, later her Quiet Revolution co-founder, was a colleague.⁠[5]

She recalls taking a leave of absence from her law firm; she first wrote a play and a memoir, began Quiet about four years after leaving and published it about eleven years after leaving. She sent the proposal to five agents, and the first four said no.⁠[6]

Her first book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, was slated for January 2012 from Crown in the United States and Viking/Penguin in the United Kingdom.⁠[7]

Quiet, which took seven years to write, became a New York Times, Washington PostThe Washington PostThe Washington Post is an American daily newspaper founded in Washington in 1877, known for its role in the Pentagon Papers case and the Watergate investigation. Run by the Meyer–Graham family for eighty years from 1933, it has been owned personally by Jeff Bezos since 2013.Open the full entry and Los Angeles Times bestseller after its 2012 publication and was the subject of a TIMETIMETIME is an American newsmagazine and media brand founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, which published its first issue on March 3, 1923; it is headquartered in New York and known for its Person of the Year selection and the TIME100 list. Since 2018 it has been personally owned by Marc and Lynne Benioff; its current Chief Executive Officer is Jessica Sibley, and its Editor-in-Chief is Sam Jacobs.Open the full entry cover story.⁠[8]

The book argues that American culture prizes the outgoing, talkative individual and undervalues traits associated with introverts; she calls the trend toward ever more collaborative work in schools and workplaces the “New Groupthink” and began speaking to corporations and education groups.⁠[2]

She gave the talk “The power of introverts” at TED2012, posted in March 2012; Fast Company named Quiet the best book of 2012.⁠[9]

With Paul Scibetta, a former head of J.P. Morgan Chase’s private bank in Asia, she co-founded Quiet Revolution to help businesses manage introverted employees, giving herself the title of “chief revolutionary” while Scibetta became CEO. The company had raised $4.5 million, counted Procter & Gamble among its clients and planned to launch QuietRev.com in June 2015.⁠[5]

She recalls that Quiet Revolution partnered with the office furniture maker Steelcase to create quiet spaces for open-plan offices, letting people move freely between quiet and social areas.⁠[6]

Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts, a young-adult book, was published in May 2016; by then Quiet had sold more than two million copies and spent four years on the New York Times bestseller list, and she was a co-founder of Quiet Revolution and the Quiet Leadership Institute.⁠[3]

On her website she describes the book as centered on children’s world of school, extracurriculars, family life and friendship, with a guide for parents and teachers at the end.⁠[10]

In June 2019 TED released her audio conversation with Chris Anderson on introversion.⁠[9]

In March 2022 TED posted her talk with violinist Min Kym, in which she presents longing as a gateway to creativity, connection and love.⁠[9]

On April 5, 2022, Crown published Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, which explores sorrow and longing through her own experiences and those of figures such as Charles Darwin, C.S. Lewis, Leonard Cohen and Maya Angelou and argues that these emotions can be channeled into artistic pursuits.⁠[11]

On her website she says the book uses the same mix of research, storytelling and memoir as Quiet to explore what sorrow and longing teach about creativity, compassion, leadership, spirituality, mortality and love.⁠[12]

On June 28, 2022, she appeared on episode 298 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, on the power of introverts and loneliness; the outline covers introverts, small talk, artistic expression, sad music, Leonard Cohen, public speaking, creativity and sadness, parenting and advice for young people.⁠[13]

On February 15, 2023, Oprah Winfrey announced on CBSCBSCBS is an American commercial broadcast television network. It was founded in 1927 as United Independent Broadcasters, renamed the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1928, and grew from a radio network into a television network under William S. Paley. With ABC and NBC it is one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks; it has been owned in turn by Westinghouse, Viacom, ViacomCBS and Paramount Global, has been owned by Paramount Skydance Corporation since 2025, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry Mornings that Bittersweet was the 99th pick of Oprah’s Book Club.⁠[14]

Winfrey said Cain “started a revolution” a decade earlier with Quiet, which she had named in 2013 as one of 40 books to read before age 40; Cain called the selection “an honor of honors.”⁠[15]

On June 2, 2026, Rocky Pond Books/Penguin published Lucky & Norman, a picture book she wrote with three generations of her family about two children who befriend a pair of donkeys on a farm vacation and must say goodbye.⁠[16]

Her official bio says her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and her TED talks have been viewed over 50 million times on TED and YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry combined; she also hosts the QUIET LIFE Substack community.⁠[17]

As of April 2022 she was curating the Next Big Idea Club with Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant and Dan Pink, donating all proceeds to children’s literacy programs; Bill GatesBill GatesBill Gates is an American entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist who cofounded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 and served as its chief executive and chairman. He later shifted his focus toward global health, education and climate, chairs the Gates Foundation, and manages investments through arrangements including Cascade.Open the full entry had named her first TED talk one of his all-time favorites.⁠[1]

Her website says Quiet spent eight years on the New York Times bestseller list.⁠[18]

She says that until a few years ago she was terrified of public speaking but has since given hundreds of talks; she is married and has sons.⁠[19]

Personal website: Public link: https://susancain.net/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

X: Public account: https://x.com/susancain (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susancain (opens in a new window)⁠[17]