Business books are entertainment, not strategic tools

Having read hundreds of books over 25 years, here’s what I think about business books:

- To understand some domain you need knowledge + insights + discernment. Books give you knowledge. Only when you apply you will get discernment. When you apply you will get specific questions which then triggers seeking more knowledge.

- Every book is a map. It leaves out a lot so readers can understand the domain. If your interest align with that map, you'll find the book useful. Otherwise it turns out to be a fluff

- Most books could be a tweet (directive). Once you understand something, it could be expressed as a directive. Until then, you need stories, explanations, and nuance.

- Jesus' command: love God and love others is a short directive of Ten commandments, which in themselves are condensed directives of the Bible. When we hear only the directive, we lose the context and we misunderstand. That's where stories come into play. Tim Ferriss' "4 hour week" makes sense when you read all the stories (playbooks, delegations etc). You leave all of that out, "4 hour week" is a (misunderstood) crap.

- Don't read recently published books. wait at least until 5 years. Let it be looked at it from all angles. Then read it.

- If you want to learn emerging topic (like GenAI), don't read books. Join communities and learn from them. Like Perplexity community for GenAI.

- Read practicing philosophers. When you want to learn swimming, learn from swimmers turned coach, not someone who stood by poolside and watched 10000 swimmers (like Jim Collins did)

- Read annual letters to shareholders (by Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Biglari ...). They have more signal than noise.

I started writing a reply and it became lot bigger than I intended. So I blogged here: https://www.jjude.com/read-biz-books/

A book doesn't have to be comprehensive to be useful, but knowing when and how to apply its lens is everything

Yep I think people just want the fast track to being rich and are not interested into putting the hours and the grind for it. There are amazing books out there but they are textbooks. 1000 pages long on a single subject, and people don't want that. But for the most part, that's where the real knowledge is.

They would rather read 10-15 books on marketing rather than study and master a single textbook about marketing. Even when they don't have to master all of it and that would still give them more value and professional knowledge than reading all of these other books.

I read my far share of business books and at some points I was seeing the edutainment behind it and the lack of value that from now on every time I search for a book I start by searching in the textbook section on Amazon not the book section.

Thanks for the comment. I’ve read the blog post as well. I think what’s missing is a list of business books you’d recommend. Otherwise, I’m not sure what kind of business books you’re talking about.

> Read practicing philosophers. When you want to learn swimming, learn from swimmers turned coach, not someone who stood by poolside and watched 10000 swimmers (like Jim Collins did)

I think "turned coach" is incredibly key here. Being a part, or even the head, of a successful business is not sufficient.

It is necessary to test those key insights/theories across the widest possible landscape. Across wildly different businesses with wildly different models, founders and internal cultures. Only then is it possible to meaningfully separate which insights are truly general, and which are heavily contingent on specifics.

The books the author critiques are primarily self-centered stories of success, which don't take sufficient meta-analysis of the context. Not that these stories aren't valuable, but only with a sufficiently robust knowledge of textbook business and economics to take each story sceptically and in context.

Given the consistency with which I've been recommended many of these exact books, I consider the Authors criticism necessary and well founded, if perhaps a bit narrowly focused.

I think the top book for any one person isn't the top book recommended by everyone the most. In my experience I’ve had to wade through 30 books to find my own gem. No aggregate data could have led me more directly to that gem. It takes real work to hunt for what works best and great satisfaction in finding it.

- In the blog post I linked to the "best business books" by "Personal MBA": https://personalmba.com/best-business-books/

- I talked about 3 letters to shareholders

- And talked about the Bible

- I talked about books by Alan Weiss & Derek Sivers

> isn't the top book recommended by everyone the most

Agreed. everyone's context is different and hence the books are different; even the lesson gained for the same book will be different.

> There are amazing books out there but they are textbooks. 1000 pages long on a single subject, and people don't want that.

I would recommend to you, the author of the OP and others in this thread read “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman. It is old but it has had amazing sticking powe in my idea of what is entertainment and what is informational. He argues that many things are made to be entertainment (even some books that are thousands of pages) and challenges readers to consider this when deciding what to invest into. We can’t all be experts on everything so we make decisions, consciously and unconsciously about when and where to draw the line based on what information is available, how it’s presented and how much the value/work tradeoff is to study/consume it in that format.

I think the sting comes when we see people ignore low hanging fruit especially willfully but we would be less critical of someone saying that the task at hand is beyond their current capacity that someone else might be better suited to a particular task or topic.

What's a good master-level textbook about marketing?

> I think "turned coach" is incredibly key here.

I agree but think "turned coach" is necessary but not sufficient. Being a successful practitioner doesn't require fully and deeply understanding all the key elements which contributed to their success. Many do but certainly not all. Even among those able to introspect and analyze, that doesn't mean they have the skills to teach it to others which requires high-level skills in observation, communication, and adapting to the student's context.

So, I think the best case coach is someone who successfully and repeatedly did it, who understands the key elements of doing it successfully, and has repeatedly taught others to be successful. Even determining that is challenging because successful practitioners turned coach tend to get the best, highest-potential students. In the case of a coach who never did it, if they get even one successful enough student, the reputation effects can quickly compound into getting their pick of the best students.

Further complicating the process of identifying a great coach for you is the meta aspect that student success isn't solely dependent on the quality of the coach or teacher. Student ability, drive and other elements are huge factors. Serially successful coaches are probably demonstrating their ability to identify those innate traits in student selection as much as their teaching ability.

The annual letter to shareholders is such a great signal that seems to be missed by a lot of people I encounter in business.

They’ll read current popular books. Or even older ones. But seem to miss scale / times / people / resources and mis apply.* (I agree with your statement about waiting - or if you want to read it applying heavy discernment ).

However, they don’t seem to have the same interest in reading shareholder letters. I’ll add that certain annual reports can contain really helpful information about economic realities, marketing, logistics, etc. (Home Depot’s is a surprisingly good example - again- if you apply some discernment to what you’re reading).

*by that I mean if you’re an executive at a 15 person company, that’s experiencing stagnation or slow (3-5% growth) and dealing with physical widgets, trying to emulate Twitter, Airbnb, or SaaS businesses might not be the right move.

Can you list some long textbooks on a single subject that are amazing?

> There are amazing books out there but they are textbooks. 1000 pages long on a single subject, and people don't want that. But for the most part, that's where the real knowledge is.

huh, hard disagree on this one. In my experience, there is zero correlation between length and insights.

PAIP

RE4B

Can you recommend any textbooks on marketing or another business subject?

Great comment and blog post man. I think you crystallised what I've been wondering, why do some business or self-improvement books feel they could have been a tweet like you said.

I don't look for the book with the maximum page length... Plus just talking about page length when talking about book vs textbook it's to miss the critical difference in content, format, and who each is made for. You forgot 2 metrics: ratings, and comments.

You probably saw them: Marketing Management and Marketing Principles by Philip Kotler. They are a good starting point.

Marketing Management by Philip Kotler is the reference.

For the rest it depends on what you need since they are very focused on one domain but for instance for accounting/finance: Cost Accounting by Charles Horngren, or Managerial Accounting for Managers by Eric Noreen is a must.

Strategor - English version by João Albino-Pimentel is amazing. A lot of tools to get started are there with very neat examples from the industry.

I have a few books that are great too. But if there is one to buy it could: The Personal MBA and then for each section get real education one way or another. From textbooks or anything.