Born in California in 1980, Ramit Sethi is the child of first-generation South Asian immigrants. He grew up in Fair Oaks, California, and attended Stanford University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, and society and a minor in psychology. He proceeded to earn his master’s degree in sociology from Stanford.

Throughout I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Sethi relates anecdotes from his life as the child of South Asian immigrants who went on to attend an elite private university. Specifically, he uses depictions of South Asians and South Asian immigrants to emphasize the importance of practicality and bargaining. For example, he subtitles Chapter 3 “Negotiate Fees Like an Indian” (69).

By referring to himself as both “Indian” and “American,” Sethi establishes himself as both like and unlike his readers, whom he presumes to be American; he is both subject to the same desires and beliefs about money as they are and privy to alternative ways of looking at the world. For example, in Chapter 1, he tells a story about buying his first car in which he depicts himself as similar to other “Indian people,” who he says are “absolutely nuts about hammering down the price to the last penny” (23).