Mo Gawdat

Mo Gawdat is an Egyptian entrepreneur, author, and technology strategist, known worldwide for his work at the intersection of technology, happiness, and artificial intelligence. He offers the unique perspective of an engineer who has sought an algorithmic solution to human unhappiness.

He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Cairo University and has had an extensive career in the global technology sector. He held senior management positions at several multinational companies and was a key leader at Google [X] (formerly Google X), Alphabet’s semi-secret research division dedicated to moonshot projects and exponential technologies, where he focused on business development. His more than thirty years of experience at the forefront of technology gave him deep insight into the future of AI and robotics.

Despite his professional success and wealth, Gawdat went through a period of profound personal unhappiness, which led him to apply his engineer’s mindset to unravel the mystery of joy. He developed a formula that breaks happiness down into a simple equation, arguing that happiness lies in maintaining control over one’s thoughts and expectations. This formula became the central theme of his international bestseller *Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy* (The Happiness Algorithm).

Following a tragic personal event, he decided to dedicate his life to sharing his “Algorithm of Happiness,” launching a global movement to help others find lasting joy. As an author and speaker, he also addresses the future of AI in his book Scary Smart, where he warns of the need to ensure that Artificial Intelligence is developed with human values in mind. His legacy is having used his engineering expertise to propose a pragmatic and accessible solution to the challenge of happiness in the modern era.