Yair Lapid was born in Tel Aviv in 1963.

Yair Lapid is a former actor, journalist, author, TV host and news anchor. He began his journalism career as a military correspondent for the IDF's weekly magazine, Ba-Mahaneh, and later wrote for both the Maariv and Yediot Aharonot dailies. From 1994 he has hosted leading talk shows on various Israeli television stations. He played an acting role in the Israeli film, "Song of The Siren". He has published seven books and written a drama series called "War Room" that was aired in 2004. In 2008, his first play, "The Right Age for Love", was performed by the Cameri Theater.

In January 2012 Lapid announced that he would be abandoning his journalism career in order to enter politics, forming the Yesh Atid party, which won 19 seats in the January 2013 election.

Yair Lapid served as Minister of Finance from March 2013 until December 2014.

He is married and the father of three.

Published books:
The Double Head (Heb) (1989) 
Yoav's Shadow (Heb) (1992) 
One-Man Play (Heb) (1993) 
Elbi - A Knight's Story (Heb) (1998) 
The Sixth Riddle (Heb) (2001) 
Standing in a Row: collection of newspaper columns (Heb) (2005) 
The Second Woman (Heb) (2006) 
Sunset in Moscow (Heb) (2007) 
My Heroes (Heb) (2008) 
Memories After My Death (2010) 
Standing in a Row Again (Heb) (2011)