Why I don’t read startup and business books anymore

Michal Ptacek
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

I really enjoy reading, but recently, I have decided to eliminate almost all business and startup books from my reading library. Why? Because most of them are a scam.

You see, whenever you go into a book store, there are dozens of business and startup books, guaranteeing you life-changing tips about getting better at work, getting richer, building a zillion dollar company, getting more productive etc.

The point of many startup and business books is to make the author richer

What you realise after reading few of these books though is that most of them are just about the same thing and their biggest goal is to actually make the author richer (funny thing is some of them never built a business before and got successful from writing a book). With all respect, do we really need to read twentieth book with tips such as:

  1. Wake at up 5am, as you will get more work done
  2. Work smarter not harder
  3. Do what you love
  4. Drink more water with lemon
  5. Exercise every day

The thing is, most of these best-selling authors (yes I am looking at you Robert Kiyosaki and Tim Ferris) just recycle these captain-obvious tips all over again and write bibles with 400 pages, even though, it all could have been easily summarized into a one paragraph. But then of course they wouldn’t make any $ as nobody would really buy a one page book.

Many people are looking for some kind of “magic success formula” and these authors know that.

I understand there is some motivation factor involved, but in general this is nothing Reddit, Quora, or Twitter couldn’t help you with as I think it should be more motivational to read tweets or posts from people like Elon Musk, Alexis Ohanian, Satya Nadella, or Ryan Hoover + it is absolutely free.

I feel that using common sense, being persistent, and building a good product that people want will give you more than most business books ever could.

There are of course startup/business books that don’t fall into the category I mentioned. For example I really enjoyed reading Elon Musk book from Ashlee Vance, and I am also looking forward to Makebook, as it looks like it will be one of those BS free books with real tips and insights.

Michal Ptacek

Written by

Founder of https://www.officelovin.com, maker, bad programmer, Twitter: @ptacekmi

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