Conan Christopher OBrien born April 18 1963 is an American television host comedian writer producer and performer He is known for being the host of the late night shows Late Night with Conan OBrien 19932009 The Tonight Show with Conan OBrien 20092010 and Conan 20102021 he is currently the host of the podcast Conan OBrien needs a friend OBrien was born in Brookline Massachusetts and raised in an Irish Catholic family He landed his first comedy job as a writer for the sketch comedy series Not Necessarily the News after first serving as president of the Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University After graduating he moved to Los Angeles where he wrote for several comedy shows and later moved to New York City to work on the writing staff of Saturday Night Live and later for The Simpsons OBrien went on to serve as host of Late Night with Conan OBrien from 1993 to 2009 before going on to host the shortlived The Tonight Show with Conan OBrien for seven months He is the only personality to ever serve as host for both the NBC Late Night and Tonight Show franchises In 2010 it was announced that OBrien would begin hosting a new latenight talk show on TBS called Conan which ran from 2018 to 2021 During the time this show was in hiatus he started the podcast Conan OBrien needs a friend which he hosts with his producer Matt Gourley and his assistant Sona Movsesian Besides this Conan also starred in Conan OBrien Must Go a series on Max in which he visits countries from around the world and meets up fans whom he talked to on the podcast