Srully Blotnick

Srully Blotnick ((1941-05-22)May 22, 1941 – December 18, 2004(2004-12-18)) was an American author and journalist. Notable books include Getting Rich Your Own Way, Computers Made Ridiculously Easy, The Corporate Steeplechase: Predictable Crises in a Business Career, Otherwise Engaged: The Private Lives of Successful Career Women, and Ambitious Men: Their Drives, Dreams and Delusions.

An expert swimmer, Blotnick first attended the University of Miami, but he later transferred to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for math. After receiving his BS degree, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, and then Princeton University, where he received his MA in math and physics, with honors. His interest in mathematical models in sociology took him to Columbia University where a survey was being conducted, funded by the National Science Foundation and he joined a team of researchers. The head of the project died suddenly and the team was left leaderless, unfunded, so Blotnick joined a Wall Street firm for the next 7 years as a research analyst, but his interest in the study continued and he began to write books on the topics.

His first two books were based on his actual experiences. Blotnick obtained his Ph.D. in 1978 via mail order from Pacific Western University, correspondence school in Los Angeles. His publicity claimed the NSF grant as the foundation for on-going research that gave him an inside track on society and investing. He became a business psychology columnist for Forbes magazine and began writing social science books.

However, in time, the press found out that his social research books were not supported by the survey claims he made. His Forbes column was canceled

in 1987. He was also the subject of a New York State criminal investigation for describing himself as a psychologist without a license. Blotnick did not have a license to practice psychology in New York at that time, but he described himself in print as a business psychologist and often used the title Dr. No criminal charges were ever brought.

Blotnick refused to acknowledge fraud on his part, and followed his lifelong interest in biomedical research. He was admitted as a graduate student to the cell biology program at Harvard Medical School, the oldest graduate student ever accepted, and received his PhD in cell biology in 1994. While there he published several peer-reviewed contributions to the biomedical field, and subsequently was a post-doctoral fellow.

Blotnick died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2004, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.