> On business, joshkaufman recommends Kaufman's The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business over Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom and Munger's Poor Charlie's Alamanack.
What a rat. Recommends his own book over two others. This is exactly what is wrong with University textbook selection. They're often just picking their friends, or someone who picked their textbook. Crooked and corrupt.
We likely agree on the larger sentiment here, but in fairness to the author I think the context of the post makes this more acceptable. The textbook recommendations are all submitted in the comments below the compiled list, and the author's own submission[0] includes at least a disclaimer and a justification for why the author felt the need to write the book.
The author did, though you may not find it satisfactory. In particular, people attacked him for recommending his book, with little specific counterargument ("it's terrible" isn't good enough). If they had engaged him in a dialog instead of insulting, maybe we'd have a better justification in the list.
I kinda feel the most ethical thing for an author to do is focus on a recommendation for the best book that isn't theirs (e.g. besides my book X, I'd recommend Y for Z reasons).
You can acknowledge that someone else's book is well-written, accurate, and valuable even if you think yours is better, or has a different focus, or a different pedagogical method, or...
The rules for the list don't say that an author can't recommend his/her own book. The rules do say that a recommender must explain why he/she recommends one book over others, which this author did.
Well, to give credit where it's due, The Personal MBA is not a bad book. It has a slightly misleading title though. It should have been called "extremely short pieces about various aspects of business".
The real value of it, at least for me, is inspiration. I read a small chapter (which is often just a page or half) and think how it relates to my actual situation. This gives me some food for thought, and very often for action, for a couple of days. Then I go back to the book, read the next piece, and so on. I sometimes disagree with the author, but it's a positive experience overall.
God, I hate books like that. In my youth, I got on a freestyle kick (go watch Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme) and bought a book called 'How To Rap' because it was well reviewed. I was hoping for some sort of insight from the greats. It was entirely made of just quotes from different rappers. Barely any structure whatsoever.
I am partway through reading The Personal MBA, and the book of quotes you mentions sound very, very different. Sure, The Personal MBA is not a deep dive into any subject (it's not meant to be) but it's got a lot more meat than just quotes from other textbooks.
While I agree that it's not "in good taste" to recommend your own book like this. I feel your reaction is a bit harsh and did not consider that he actually gave disclosure upon recommending the book.
Agree 100%.
I submitted this post but arrived at the same conclusion with this book recommendation, also the author is way too young to have ample experience...
Too young to have ample experience? He’s distilling the results of reading over a thousand books on various business topics into a book on what business is. You don’t need ample experience for that. You need the stamina to read, judge and summarise all those books and the good taste and writing ability to actually write it.
It’s like the process of a journalist writing a book on a topic they have only the vaguest idea about, there’s a lot of reading and at some stage hopefully some understanding slips in. Except Josh has a business degree and worked at Procter & Gamble so he actually knew what he was on about before he started writing.
> What a rat. Recommends his own book over two others. This is exactly what is wrong with University textbook selection. They're often just picking their friends, or someone who picked their textbook. Crooked and corrupt.
My professor for Political Science recommended his own book.
He also donated all of the money he would have made on it for our class into the general fund for the students. Which meant that he lost money because not everybody in the class bought the book.
Textbooks are a racket. Especially the "rental" model which effectively admits that the textbook has zero utility beyond the class.
However, the professors are neither the cause nor gaining the profits from that racket. The act of writing a textbook takes so much time and effort, that it really isn't profitable for the vast majority of professors.
Having the best product and corrupt practices aren't mutually exclusive at all.
I mean this in general, this example here where an author is promoting his own book without hiding his name is borderline. Says more about the site's reliability than the author's honesty to me.
It's just business. Every business does it. Get used to it. Have an iPhone are forced to buy things from the App Store? Crooked and corrupt...? Bought a Tesla and cant use it for independent ride sharing? Crooked and corrupt? It's just business.
"It's just business" sounds like a justification, where you're trying to say it is okay, which may be where people are inferring that from- even if it was not intended
Even in your further explanations of your repeated use of the phrase, you continue to say things like "it's not corrupt, it's just business". That makes no sense. Something can be both. These are not the same thing. Business is not always corrupt, and corruption isn't always "just business"
A view that "much of business is corrupt" may be true but there is no nuance in your (confusing) statements.
> Im just saying it happens everywhere, not OK but also unavoidable.
You're saying such behavior should be accepted and left without comment, because you claim "everyone's doing it." At best, that's and argument for apathy that rejects the idea that progress is possible.
> It's accepted everyday by people everywhere now.
What are you trying to accomplish by saying stuff like this? The subject of your sentence is "corruption and shady behavior." It's false that corruption and shady behavior are "accepted everyday by people everywhere now" without extraordinary evidence that you fail to provide.
That is, unless when you say "accepted" you mean "endured," and you just chose your words poorly.
It's just business. Recommending your own text book is not crooked and corrupt. It's business. Forcing your users to acquire all apps for your iPhone through your own app store is also not crooked and corrupt. It's just business. Everyone tolerates it because money talks.
> It's just business. Everyone tolerates it because money talks.
Sometimes "business" must bow down to things like ethics, otherwise it tends towards corruption and exploitation.
Hocking your own book in a list of the "best textbooks on every subject" is definitely a kind of corruption. It may get you some sales but it abuses the list and any trust placed in it. Recommendations like that should be made without such conflicts of interest.
Also, repeating "it's just business" a bunch of times isn't a very good argument in favor of anything, it's nearly totally free of any content.
> Sometimes "business" must bow down to things like ethics, otherwise it tends towards corruption and exploitation.
That's if you get caught. On paper I completely agree with you, but in reality I think you'll find many many many businesses and industry that skirt ethically and moral behavior to cement their bottom line.
I keep repeating its just business because it is, ultimately everything comes down to money especially in business. Is it inappropriate to charge people a higher price for an airline ticket because they browse your website with a macbook? It happens. What about amazon raising the price for an item because you've browsed it several times in the past already? Recommending your own book because you believe in its contents but also helps to put a roof over your head? It's all just business.
>> Sometimes "business" must bow down to things like ethics, otherwise it tends towards corruption and exploitation.
> That's if you get caught. On paper I completely agree with you, but in reality I think you'll find many many many businesses and industry that skirt ethically and moral behavior to cement their bottom line.
No, businesses, and the people who they're composed of, must bow down to things like ethics, even when they wouldn't get "caught" behaving unethically.
> I keep repeating its just business because it is, ultimately everything comes down to money especially in business.
That's a morally bankrupt sentiment. Don't hold up a descriptive model of sociopathic behavior as a normative model of social behavior.
Simple models can be intellectually compelling, but neither correct nor complete. Simple economic theories, especially not the ones laymen read, do not represent the bedrock principles of society or human behavior. There's much they leave out and more that's orthogonal to them.
> Don't hold up a descriptive model of sociopathic behavior as a normative model of social behavior.
Do you use Uber, Apple, Github or Amazon? Because if you do you are accepting these principals as just being part of business and it comes down to money. Most CEOs and/or founders exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior and it's clearly accepted (evidenced by the support seen in HN discussions). Yes simple models can be neither 100% or complete but do show a general trend. Move fast and break things, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, all is fair in love andwar (and business). Im not saying its right, Im saying Im not surprised and expect this behavior from most companies and also expect some sort of insane justification when caught.
> Do you use Uber, Apple, Github or Amazon? Because if you do you are accepting these principals as just being part of business and it comes down to money...
Not that tired pseudoargument again. "Don't you exist in the imperfect world? Therefore you must be OK with its deficiencies." With few exceptions, the inhabitants of Earth are unable to conjure bubbles perfectly isolated from contact with any of the world's imperfections. That doesn't mean we're unjustified or hypocritical for criticizing those flaws or using our limited influence to try to smooth out those we can.
Also, there's that misleading blurring between the normative, circumstantial, and explanatory again.
> Most CEOs and/or founders exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior and it's clearly accepted (evidenced by the support seen in HN discussions).
It's really odd how adamant you are that we should accept corrupt or sociopathic behavior as normal, and how resistant you are to criticism of it or calls for its curtailment.
> Move fast and break things, easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, all is fair in love andwar (and business).
For the most part, those are shitty ideas used to justify shitty actions.
Look up elsewhere, but IIRC Tesla bars use of its SuperChargers for vehicles being used commercially. Not sure if that just slows charging or if it fully restricts the vehicle to home and other private chargers.
What a rat. Recommends his own book over two others. This is exactly what is wrong with University textbook selection. They're often just picking their friends, or someone who picked their textbook. Crooked and corrupt.