Carter Bays co-created the television series How I Met Your Mother, serving as co-showrunner for the entirety of its nine-year, 208-episode run. Before that, he was a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, and a producer for the animated series American Dad! His novel, The Mutual Friend, was published by Dutton in 2022. His play, True Marriage, will be produced by the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey, in spring 2027. He grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and holds a BA from Wesleyan University.