Michael Margolis is the CEO and founder of Storied, a strategic consultancy that specializes in storytelling for disruption. Since 2002 Michael has pioneered the craft of strategic narratives. As a Silicon Valley storyteller, Michael advises leaders and teams at Google, Meta, and NASA—helping to navigate hyper-growth and how to convey their most ambitious vision, strategies, and initiatives. Michael is a story philosopher that is devoted to the first principles of rhetoric, and advancing the art of persuasion in a non-dual, non-adversarial manner. He is a student of transformation, and has built a reputation for solving riddles at the greatest scale of stakes, complexity, and ambiguity.
As an educator, Michael has taught his unique narrative methods to thousands around the world. The son of a mad scientist and a teacher/artist, Michael is obsessed with how to translate new ideas into cultural acceptance. Michael began his career as a social entrepreneur, working on poverty, race, and the digital divide. He was funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations by the age of 22, and a startup failure by the age of 24. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Michael is fascinated with language systems, beliefs, and how narratives shape our reality. Michael’s words and ideas have been featured in Fast Company, TIME, Forbes, Brandweek, and NPR. His most recent book, Story 10x: Turn the Impossible Into the Inevitable, is available in bookstores, on Kindle, and Audible. Michael is left-handed, color-blind, and eats more chocolate than the average human. A recovering global nomad, Michael lives in Los Angeles, CA.