Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli
Dobelli's promotional portrait in 2010
Born	(1966-07-15) July 15, 1966 (age 50) Luzern, Switzerland
Occupation	Author, businessman

Rolf Dobelli (born July 15, 1966 in Luzern, Switzerland) is a Swiss author and businessman. He began his writing career as a novelist in 2002, but he is best known internationally for his bestselling non-fiction The Art of Thinking Clearly (2011, English 2013), for which The Times has called him "the self-help guru the Germans love".

Born in 1966 in Lucerne, Switzerland, he obtained an MBA in 1991 from the University of St. Gallen and a PhD in economic philosophy in 1995. In 1999, he co-founded getAbstract, a publisher of book summaries and article abstracts.

In 2003, Diogenes Publisher (Switzerland) published his first novel, Fünfunddreissig ("Thirty-five"), followed by Und was machen Sie beruflich? ("And What Do You Do for a Living?") in 2004, Himmelreich in 2006, Wer bin ich? ("Who am I?") and Turbulenzen ("Turbulence") in 2007 and Massimo Marini in 2010. The major themes in Dobelli's novels are the meaning of success and the role of randomness in business and in life.

Dobelli is the author of The Art of Thinking Clearly (Die Kunst des klaren Denkens), originally published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2011, which was an instant success, entering Germany's Der Spiegel Bestseller list as number 1. It was the bestselling non-fiction book in Germany and Switzerland in 2012. It was translated into English in 2013 and hit the top ten bestseller lists in the U.K, South Korea, India, Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore.The Art of Thinking Clearly was attacked by Nassim Taleb and Christopher Chabris for plagiarism. See reference for Dobelli's response. Christopher Chabris has published an example in Dobelli's book that is referenced but does not have quotation marks, and four paragraphs in the notes/references section (unprinted in most editions) without the formally required proper credit. Dobelli acknowledged those errors and they will be fixed.