←back to thread

593 points ZeroTalent | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.203s | source
Show context
WoodenChair ◴[] No.43943001[source]
I've read over 100 business books. Why? Because I enjoy the genre and its many sub-genres. From both an entertainment and a practical perspective. And that's also why I co-host the podcast Business Books & Co. [0].

In my opinion, the author of this post is correct about his criticisms of the specific books in the post (we did several of them on the show). Many business books overly generalize, are not empirically rigorous, and are better seen as anecdotal and/or entertainment.

But you also need to understand that "business books" is a very broad category that includes many sub-genres like entrepreneurial storytelling (Shoe Dog), "big idea" books (Zero to One), career up-skilling (Radical Candor), economic history (Titan), and self-help (How to Win Friends and Influence People). Many of these cross over into non-business genres as well.

So, in some sense the author here is doing the same kind of over-generalization that many of the books do. He's mostly speaking about the "big idea" books as if those are the whole genre. What is a business book? It's ill-defined but I think there are many great ones outside the "big idea" space. For example, we just interviewed John Romero on the show to discuss his 2023 autobiography Doom Guy[1]. In my opinion, it is absolutely a wonderful business book from the entrepreneurial storytelling sub-genre. But it doesn't fit the mold that this post talks about.

0: http://businessbooksandco.com

1: https://pnc.st/s/business-books/e9076f47/doom-guy-with-john-...

replies(11): >>43943521 #>>43943631 #>>43943912 #>>43943973 #>>43944203 #>>43944343 #>>43944644 #>>43944770 #>>43944786 #>>43945231 #>>43945428 #
1. jonathanstrange ◴[] No.43944786[source]
Even the reputable books tend to resort to anecdotal evidence and do not evaluate any of their claims. I'd go crazy if I had to read 100 of them but the ones I read were based on 100% survivorship bias and 0% scientific studies.

Personally, it seems to me that general business books --- that is, the ones that aren't textbooks (accounting, microeconomics, etc.) --- are merely a sub-genre of the self-help category and that these books may provide value by giving some motivation and inspiration at best and, at worst, provide huge disvalue by misinforming.