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Comment by beastman82 | Hacker News Reader

Does this guy bother anyone else as much as he bothers me?

The real value in Tim Ferriss' work for me is not usually in the actual content (This blog posts talks about where to register domain names rather than nitty-gritty business details, for example) but rather in observing how well he sells himself and understand what people want. He obviously does a lot of research and testing, and his posts are carefully tailored to sell dreams to large portions of the population.

He has two books: One sells you on the dream of world travel with minimal work, interspersed with stories about how awesome he is and how you, too, can be just as awesome if you follow his instructions. Nevermind the fact that he clearly states he wrote the book because he became successful by working long hours and working very hard to make his company successful.

His second (upcoming) book is all about how to 'beat the system' when it comes to eating and fitness. He talks about losing body fat while eating anything he wants using little-known secrets, among other things.

Finally, his blog (and this post in particular) tell a lot of feel-good stories that feel just within reach. He's a master at weaving a narrative that makes you feel like you want his lifestyle, and that it's within reach if you just follow his simple advice.

So what do these all have in common? He's a master at selling people on an idea, even when all of the facts don't quite line up. His works all make lofty promises, but they all seem just crazy enough to still be within reach. He even puts reverse-psychology disclaimers throughout his works to trip up your own sense of disbelief. Meanwhile, he has become wealthy and successful not by following his own advice, but by selling his advice to others.

The takeaway: Learn from his techniques and products, not from his advice. And there's a lot to learn if you step back and look at it.

I was just pondering getting his book, but then I read the comments here and reconsidered. Is it worth reading? Obviously you won't get a 4-hour work week, but is there anything of value in it?

I scanned it in the bookstore one weekend a while back. The gist (what I can remember anyway) is to outsource everything. He basically outsourced his whole life and most business activities using various web outsourcing services like Freelancer.com and whatnot. There were some other little innovations to go along with it, but that's what I remember most.

It's worth a quick speed read in the bookstore, but I wouldn't buy it.

I see, thank you.

It's worth reading. People have sour grapes about others being successful.

Ah, thanks.

I personally really enjoyed it — people whine about "outsourcing everything" but why not outsource all the tasks you don't like doing, ergo reducing your "work" (stuff you don't like doing)?

There are also a lot of good stories about taking mini-retirements regularly rather than saving up for one large one and ways you can make it happen by convincing your boss to let you work remotely or by quitting, so it's not just about outsourcing.

Buy it, read with a critical eye. Its not hard to look past the bollocks but there are good/interesting things to pick up

Yes. I mean, I think the guy is an arrogant, unethical bastard, but IF you can just get past that and keep an open mind I think he does have a few interesting points on productivity, priorities, questioning what you really want, etc. There's actually a lot of stuff in the book that I agree with, but there's a lot that really irks me, too.

I don't know enough to comment one way or the other about the guy, but it seems a bit harsh to call him arrogant and unethical without at least describing how/why.

In the spirit of Tim Ferriss, outsource the purchase and reading of the book to someone else.

Stavros, you're in the UK, right? If you want a copy of his book, send an email to books (at) allwein dot org with your mailing address and I'll get a copy sent off to you.

For US folk, I've got two other copies of his book, one of the original release and then a copy of the updated ones from last year. Claim it here and then send me an email with your address and I'll send them out.

I really like your analysis. I just had the realization that Tim Ferris is basically Oprah for men.

I understand what you mean... he's earned himself a reputation as a bit of an egomaniac. To be fair though, his book is how I was first exposed to MVP ideas and his approach to life and business changed my life. Granted, it took a lot of work and a lot more digging once I got past 4HWW, but it was an eye opener nonetheless.

I think a lot of blatant self promotion comes across as spammy to "people like me" (for lack of any real description of what that might be), but the more I look around, the more I realize that most people eat it up.

Yes. http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/01/08/5-time-management-t...

You should have been at RailsConf '09 where he was a keynote speaker. It seemed half the audience walked out and the chatter on twitter was quite negative ... so, to answer your question, yes.

http://www.railsinside.com/events/285-tim-ferriss-railsconf-...

I won't go that far, but I did notice that they completely glossed over her mention of partners in the interview with the laptop stand woman.

Ferriss is certainly invested in the idea of one-person financial power, but in the laptop-stand case study there would seem to be more to the story.

I'll weigh in because I know Jason, one of the people profiled. His modesty obscures the fact that starting, running, and growing Clockspot wasn't an easy ride by any means.

But Jason did pull this off almost entirely on his own.

Clockspot was actually the one example that did resonate with me, as I'm working toward a similar kind of soup-to-nuts one-man app stack that he did in creating a time-clock with mobile clients. I mean, it's straightforward and doesn't involve Hard Problems other than having to use at least a couple different and possibly-newish languages, right? It's seems to be pretty much a textbook REST app.

I also really like seeing improved and successful implementations of existing technology, proven in the story by the example of his dad being perfectly willing to get a punch style timeclock in this day and age. And not only is Clockspot able to leverage the history of timeclocks, it can also be seen to be a kind of "time twitter," so all of the published domain expertise about implementing that can be relied on to provide another huge chunk of the app and mobile clients.

Which is why software patents are bad. ;)

soup-to-nuts one-man app stack... porn music plays

Clockspot looks really nice and by the numbers quoted it sounds very successful.

I'm quite intrigued by how he arrived at the current pricing model. It looks like it's been through a few iterations and I'd be really interested to learn more about it.

Does anyone know if this has been discussed anywhere online?

I work with Jason. If you're interested, ping me and we'll be happy to tell you about it. vladik at clockspot dot com

It would seem that there's almost always more to the story, and his overall message ("you, too, can have financial freedom all by yourself...now go have fun") might be stronger if he acknowledged that, yes, it's hard to build a company to that point.

What I think is valuable is the constant reminder that the business/income-building is a means to an end, and there's a wide world of choices out there for what the "end" is.

is the constant reminder that the business/income-building is a means to an end, and there's a wide world of choices out there for what the "end" is

I think the lesson of the story is that there are so many people and competitors now that running a business/muse as a means to an end is impossible unless you lower your expectations as to what an end is.

You must either lower your expectation by living in 3rd world countries as Ferris suggests, or work 7-days a week like Tim Ferris did on his herbal supplement company. Or be plain lucky and find a niche that no one has found out like the ones shown here. Most niche ideas fail.

I don't understand the down-votes. Am I offending someone's vision of Tim Ferris's 4 hour work week?

The recent trend of him outsourcing his own posts is really annoying.

I don't understand how anyone can learn anything from someone who has pretty much diluted his work to appeal to the widest possible audience.

I mean the guy has a weight loss book now.

EDIT: Most of his recent posts have been "guest" posts, which I consider the same as "outsourced" since he didn't write it himself.

Interesting. I didn't know he outsourced his blog posts. Can you give me the link for that?

Most blogs call them "guest posts" — outsourcing implies that he's not explicitly saying it's written by another person.

Here's an example: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/11/21/bill-clinton...

Most of his best content wasn't outsourced though. There's plenty of that too.

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