The Business of Humor with Emmy Winning Comedy Writer & Entrepreneur, Joe Toplyn

As an undergraduate, Joe Toplyn was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Engineering and, later, an MBA. After only a few years in the business world he made a major career change, joining the writing staff of the television show Late Night with David Letterman, where he won four Emmy awards. Joe went on to become co-head writer of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and head writer of Late Show with David Letterman. His other writing credits include the comedic detective show Monk. Joe also taught comedy writing and turned his course material into one of Amazon's bestselling books on the subject. Most recently, Joe founded a startup and invented a patented system that enables robots to improvise jokes. In this episode: In this episode of HAE Invites, our host Denise Silber is joined by Harvard College and HBS alum, Joe Toplyn. Joe is a four-time Emmy award winning late night comedy writer, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and inventor of a recently-patented AI that generates original jokes. Denise and Joe discuss the fact that while succeeding in comedy is challenging, with an entrepreneurial mindset, professional opportunities can be limitless.