Lori Gottlieb

Life and career

Gottlieb was raised in Beverly Hills, California. As a child, she suffered from anorexia; according to her memoir, Stick Figure, her illness was resolved after being threatened with force-feeding.

Gottlieb graduated from Stanford University in 1989, with a major in French. She then worked as a television executive for NBC.

Gottlieb left Hollywood with the intention of attending medical school. She later wrote about an unsuccessful interview experience at Harvard Medical School, during which the interviewer dismissed her as "too Hollywood." Instead, she returned to Stanford for medical school, but dropped out when, according to author Po Bronson, she realized that she didn't like "hanging around sick people."

Gottlieb briefly worked for the unsuccessful Internet startup Kibu.com, but was laid off before it went under; she wrote about the experience in the book Inside the Cult of Kibu.

Gottlieb went on to become an occasional commentator for National Public Radio and a contributor for the Atlantic Monthly. In the essay, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, which was the basis of her book of the same title, she documented the hardships and trials of finding a husband at 41 after choosing to become a single mother through a sperm donor before her "biological clock" ran out.

In 2010, Gottlieb wrote about her experience dating a 300-pound lawyer for the anthology Scoot Over, Skinny, which was criticized by her ex-boyfriend as exaggerated and fabricated.