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Comment by tacos | Hacker News Reader

  - I'm really good at it, promise
  - Did I mention I'm good at it?
  - [random name drop]
  - It was *lucrative*
  - Have I established that I was good at it and that I made money off it?
  - [random quote]
  - Rules are made to be broken
  - Catchphrase
  - Platitude
  - [random Feynman reference]
  - The new people don't like me or vice versa

Gee Tim, I wonder why.

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I generally like Tim (and have genuinely found some of the tips, particularly stoic philosophy, really useful) but I wish he'd take a break from the marketing bullshit.

I recently discovered Tim with his podcast. While I usually like the podcast, I'm curious, what are the arguments against Tim? What opinions do you strongly disagree with him?

I'm also looking for others thinkers that have usually different opinions with him.

While I am most decidedly not a fan of his books the podcasts are excellent. In the last two weeks he's had Mark Andreessen and Kevin Kelly and for me that is as good as it gets. I'd also recommend checking out the Naval Ravikant one which has become almost legendary.

One thing that I dislike about Tim is that he claims to be very accomplished. If you look at most of his accomplishments, he basically is exploiting a flaw in the rules to achieve a very narrow definition of "success."

For example, his "kickboxing world championship" was actually a small san-shou (a fairly low popularity Chinese version of kickboxing) federation's "championship". In addition, the way he won was by clinching with his opponents and pushing them out of the designated combat area; basically, exploiting the letter of the rules. This was facilitated by the fact that competitors weren't very athletic, and didn't typically cut weight for competition, so by aggressively cutting weight he was able to come in 15-20lbs heavier than his opponents.

Additionally, he claims to have gone from a 300lb deadlift to being able to deadlift 650lbs in an incredibly short period. Buried away in the notes he mentions that this 650lb deadlift is actually done in a smith machine, with the weight starting just above his knees - so missing the hardest three fifths or so of the movement.

Don't get me wrong, some of Tim's accelerated learning techniques are legit, but in general he is more interested in doing something that he can brag about at cocktail parties than legitimately mastering things.

I was going to defend him by pointing out that he holds a world record in Tango, but then I watched the video and now I realize he basically just paid $10,000 for an honorable title. But then I remembered that he competed in the Tango world championships, but then I watched _that_ video and it's equally unimpressive. It's like competing in the world series of poker...

I like the guy, but he's a hell of a marketer.

Was he the guy who made a video titled "impossible is nothing" or something like that?

Tim is becoming more like the Robert Kiyosaki of the startup/techie crowd, rather than a store of knowledge about strange and obscure ways scoured from unconventional or overlooked sources like in the early days of the four hour work week

His early audience was attracted to his deep research into geeky things and hacking his way into things, but that has been heavily watered down as he expanded into writing multiple books [1], a mailing list, a TV series, a podcast, ... the list goes on. Although given his growing audience I wouldn't blame him for this. Another criticism is that Tim is by far not a primary or even secondary source for any of the things talks about religiously. He often touts books that fail to cite sources themselves, which just snowballs into misinformation. And this isn't about highly opinionated issues, it's usually about well studied regiments like weight lifting, nootropics, sleep, and memory. Why keep relying on Tim if I can go to bodybuilding.com, longecity, or bluelight and read cited reports firsthand?

[1] There was also added controversy to his character with speculation that Tim heavily relied on ghost writers, and even "hacked" his way to Best-Sellers lists [2]

[2] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873238643045783161...

I listened to a dozen or so of his podcasts and read a few articles of his. Unless I'm missing something I've never found anything of value in what he speaks about. It's always general topics that, much like horoscopes, could be seemingly applied in every situation.

I'm curious what his contributions are that are not just him marketing himself.

Exactly. He just vaguely talks about cool stuff with supposedly cool people. I tried his podcasts and just can't get into him.

You think he's worthless and yet you listened to "a dozen or so of his podcasts". Mmmmkay.

What of it? I think lots of stuff is terrible and pay attention to it to better understand it. Both to insure against the possibility that I'm wrong and, if I'm not, to better understand why it exists and how it came to be.

So you've never tried something multiple times before deciding it wasn't for you?

He does a lot of interviews so after I determined I wasn't the biggest fan I decided to download just the episodes with interviews of people I was interested it. Then I unsubscribed.

Seems reasonable to me.

If i consume 12+ episodes of something it means there is some value there. Otherwise I would have stopped earlier. I don't really understand all this negativity towards Ferriss. He's an honest guy who provides a lot of value to people. No one is forced to listen to him.

> If i consume 12+ episodes of something it means there is some value there

Not really. As I said I tried a few then just downloaded the interviews of people I as interested in thinking he might be as good as Mixergy. Ultimately I found out nothing new was really asked in any of the interviews I listened to.

So I thought there would be redeeming value in the interviews of guests I was interested in but at least for me there was not.

> I don't really understand all this negativity towards Ferriss. He's an honest guy who provides a lot of value to people. No one is forced to listen to him.

I'm not really negative towards him I just find his content spammy / of little value. It's terribly generic and I find the examples of comparing him to horoscopes pretty apt.

many friends let him invest in their company, not one (that I know of) found any use for him outside of dumb money and maybe a shout out on his podcast.

>many friends let him invest in their company, not one (that I know of) found any use for him outside of dumb money

little-known fact: money can be exchanged for goods and services.

thanks for that, explains why my local market won't take bushels of corn as payment.

seriously though, sometimes investors are also given terms that assume said investor will help out in ways other than writing a check.

first world problems. "man, all I got from my investor is a bunch of money to build my dream with. useless."

Good summary. Downvoters gonna hate. Doesn't change the truth.

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