Marshall David Brain II (May 17, 1961 – November 20, 2024) was an American author, public speaker, futurist, businessman, and academic, who specialized in making complex topics easier to understand for the general public. He was the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and the author of the How Stuff Works book series. He hosted the National Geographic channel's Factory Floor with Marshall Brain and Who Knew? With Marshall Brain.

Early life and education Marshall Brain was born in Santa Monica, California, where his father designed components for Moon rockets. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1983, and a M.S in computer science from North Carolina State University."Sultan of Stuff" , Rensselaer Magazine, June 2002.

Marshall taught in the computer science department at North Carolina State University from 1986 to 1992. He also wrote computer programming manuals and ran a software training and consulting company.Manjoo, Farhad. "Welcome to the machine?" , Salon, 18 September 2003.

Business career In 1998, Brain founded the website HowStuffWorks.com as a hobby."50 Best Websites: Information and Reference: HowStuffWorks", Time.com, 2002.Guernsey, Lisa. "For One Web Site, Some Explaining to Do", The New York Times, 24 May 2001. In 2002, Time magazine described HowStuffWorks.com as "an eclectic encyclopedia that covers everything from torque converters to dieting to DNA." In 2002, Brain sold a part of his related company, How Stuff Works Inc., to The Convex Group, an Atlanta-based investment company owned by former Web MD CEO Jeff Arnold, for an estimated $1 million. Discovery purchased the website for $250 million in 2007 and introduced its television show How Stuff Works in 2008.

In 2008 and 2009, he hosted Factory Floor with Marshall Brain and the Who Knew? With Marshall Brain, both on the National Geographic channel. For these shows, Brain showed viewers how products are designed, tested, and manufactured. Brain says shows like this are popular because "We use this stuff every day and some of it's so interesting. Like the science underneath it, and how people use that science to make the product and other people make it cheap enough for all of us to be able to afford it."

Brain appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Oz, Good Morning America, CNN, and Modern Marvels.CNN interview with Kyra Phillips, CNN, August 15, 2003.

In addition to his How Stuff Works nonfiction book series, Brain wrote about robotics, transhumanism, and atheism, including his books The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as Cockroaches (2015) and Manna: Two Views of Humanity's Future (2012). Brain maintained that automation and robots will lead to unemployment for humans, such as 1.5 million big-rig truck drivers in the U.S. losing their jobs to self-driving cars, requiring a government guaranteed minimum income.

Brain last lectured at, and was the director of the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at North Carolina State University. He worked on EcoPRT, a new transportation system, with Dr. Seth Hollar.

Personal life and death Brain resided in Cary, North Carolina, with his wife Leigh Ann and four children. He was an atheist and ran the website Why Won't God Heal Amputees? . In 2018, he was a speaker during the March for Science, a protest against President Donald Trump.

Brain was found dead in his office at Centennial Campus on November 20, 2024, at the age of 63. His death certificate described the cause of death as suicide. Two and a half hours before his body was discovered, he sent an email to over 30 recipients claiming that he had been forced into retirement at North Carolina State after filing an ethics complaint writing “I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university.”

Publications +BooksPublisherDateISBNMotif Programming: The Essentials... and MoreDigital Press1992Using Windows NT: The Essentials for ProfessionalsPrentice Hall1993Win 32 System Services: The Heart of Windows NTPrentice Hall1994Windows NT Administration: Single Systems to Heterogeneous NetworksPrentice Hall1994Visual C++ 2: Developing Professional Applications in Windows 95 and NT Using MFCPrentice Hall1995Windows Application Design with OLE 2.0: For Windows and Windows NTPrentice Hall1995Developing Professional Applications: For Windows 95 and NT Using MFC, with CD-ROMPrentice Hall1996Sybase System XIPrentice Hall1996Win 32 System Services (2nd edition)Prentice Hall1996The Teenager's Guide to the Real World: How to Become a Successful AdultBYG Publishing1997Microsoft Technology: Networking, Concepts, ToolsPrentice Hall1998Understanding COM+Prentice Hall1998Win 32 System Services: The Heart of Windows 98 and Windows 2000 (3rd Edition)Prentice Hall2000Windows CE 3.0: Application Programming [With CDROM]Prentice Hall2000How Much Does the Earth Weigh? (Marshall Brain's How Stuff Works)Wiley2001Marshall Brain's How Stuff WorksWiley2001Marshall Brain's More How Stuff WorksWiley2002What If...? Intriguing Answers for the Insatiably CuriousWiley2002Brain's Sum and Substance Quick Review on Contracts, 7th editionWest2006The Science Book: Everything You Need to Know About the World and How It WorksNational Geographic2008The Day You Discard Your BodyBYG Publishing Inc.2012How to Make a Million DollarsBYG Publishing Inc.2012How to Raise Money from Angel Investors and Venture CapitalistsBYG Publishing Inc.2012Manna - Two Views of Humanity's FutureBYG Publishing Inc.2012The Meaning of LifeBYG Publishing Inc.201250 Things that Can Kill Your Child and How to Avoid All of ThemBYG Publishing Inc.2013Robotic Nation & Robotic FreedomBYG Publishing Inc.2013The Engineering Book: From the Catapult to the Curiosity Rover, 250 Milestones in the History of EngineeringUnion Square Co2015How God Works: A Skeptic Questions BeliefSterling Ethos2015The Second Intelligent Species: How Humans Will Become as Irrelevant as CockroachesBYG Publishing Inc.2015How "God" Works: A Logical Inquiry on FaithSterling Ethos2016The Doomsday Book: The Science Behind Humanity's Greatest ThreatsUnion Square Co.2020

Television shows Factory Floor with Marshall Brain (2008) – Host Who Knew? With Marshall Brain (2008) – Host

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