Benjamin Aaron Shapiro (born January 15, 1984) is an American conservative political commentator, public speaker, author, and lawyer. At age 17, he became the youngest nationally syndicated columnist in the United States. He writes columns for Creators Syndicate and Newsweek, serves as editor-in-chief for The Daily Wire, which he founded, and hosts The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. An editor-at-large of Breitbart News between 2012 and 2016, he has written ten books, the first being Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (2004) and the latest being The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great (2019).