
Tim Ferriss on tolerable mediocrity, and the advice he gives startups - admp
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2734-tim-ferriss-on-tolerable-mediocrity-false-idols-diversifying-your-identity-and-the-advice-he-gives-startups
======
hugh3
Tim Ferriss meets 37 Signals, creating a perfect storm of self promotion.

"Hi Tim. Some folks doubt that you're as awesome as you say you are, because
they can't believe anyone can be so awesome. However, we're also that awesome,
so we can totally believe it ourselves."

------
techpeace
"I don’t know anything about Tim Ferris’s exercise regime. He came through our
Sport and Fitness Evaluation Program for some testing a number of years ago.
He did not provide any information about his purpose. In fact, I only found
out that he put my name on his website after receiving an inquiry from someone
who had seen the website and asked if I could confirm his results. I cannot —
he signed a consent form that states that individual results will not be
disclosed. Although he contacted me about being retested, I am not willing to
do that because he is apparently using my name and San Jose State University
for his commercial purposes, without asking for permission or notifying me of
this."

The above quotation is allegedly from the doctor that Ferriss sites at the
beginning of The 4 Hour Body. I have not verified that the quotation is
legitimate, but I found it within this review of the book:
[http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=337...](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3373698)

I found the review when I was researching some of the claims he makes within
the book, claims which, to me, seemed to be obviously fraudulent. Assuming
it's true, I have a hard time understanding why anyone should seek him out for
advice on any matter.

~~~
trevelyan
This runs the other way for me, suggesting that Ferris at least made a good
faith effort to get supporting data. No-one is claiming the data is wrong
here. It's the "fitness evaluation expert" who is refusing to confirm or even
retest the guy. And her scorn about "commercial purposes" rings particularly
hollow given she is taking salary from a publicly-funded university.

Reminds me of the time I paid a US university hospital for various STD tests
for visa purposes, and then the hospital refused to give me the resulting
paperwork citing patient confidentiality. Totally ridiculous.

~~~
techpeace
I think there's a difference between getting "supporting data" (or your own
medical test results) and using a physician (and a university's name) without
their express permission to both:

1\. promote a commercial work, and 2\. espouse an exercise regime that may be
harmful.

Tim has responded to my comment on that original post:

"Matt,

To be clear: - Dr. Plato took most of the measurements in one chapter titled
“Geek to Freak” - As she noted, I’ve contacted her several times (phone and
email) in the desire to confirm data and even repeat tests. My last email to
her was in March of 2009 and read:

“Dear Dr. Plato,

It has been some time since we last spoke, and I hope this finds you well! We
did a number of hydrostatic weighings and circumference measurements back in
2005/2006, when I was gaining a lot of muscular weight as an experiment.

Are you still working at the Human Performance Laboratory? I will be writing a
new book about physical optimization and will need to track things well. Do
you have any availability for a visit from me and one other person anytime
soon?”

If I wanted to falsify data, I wouldn’t include a specific person’s name. Too
much headache for everyone. I hoped to actually work with Dr. Plato to present
things, but she didn’t respond to my email/phone.

That is. Nothing sinister about it.

All the best,

Tim Ferriss"

~~~
trevelyan
I don't know if I'm missing the point here, but I don't see anything wrong
with getting tests done and letting people know who did the testing and where.

Unless Ferris is claiming a personal endorsement of his program that does not
exist, this is a non-issue. The university and physician seem to have been
given ample opportunity to divorce themselves from the published results
and/or retest. The refusal to do either because Ferriss doesn't work for the
civil service is churlish.

~~~
techpeace
The problem is using a physician's name to lend authority to a physical
regimen that might be harmful without that physician's approval. He's clearly
attempting to mislead his readers.

------
edw519
Additional inspirational content coming soon:

Napolean Hill, "Code and Get Rich"

Dale Carnegie, "How to Win Data and Influence Google"

Norman Vincent Peale, "The Power of Positive Customer Feedback"

Jack Canfield, "Chicken Soup for the Ruby Programmer"

Stephen Covey, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Founders"

Ken Blanchard, "The One Minute Start-Up"

Harold Kushner, "When Bad Data Happens to Good Web Sites"

Tony Robbins, "Awaken the Coder Within"

Zig Zigler, "See You at the IPO"

Robert Kiyosaki, "Rich Angel, Poor Angel"

Wayne Dyer, "You'll See It When You Click It"

David Allen, "Getting Apps Done"

Robert Fulghum, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned at 37signals"

~~~
maukdaddy

      Robert Fulghum, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned at 37signals"
    

HAHA I wonder, due to age, if the average HNer might not get that reference.
Regardless, I can't help but feel that would be a hilarious book.

A few possibilities:

    
    
      Warm cookies and great design are good for you
    
      Wash your hands before you code
    
      Say you're sorry when you have downtime

~~~
RyanMcGreal
More:

Share everything, preferably on github.

Play fair and deploy an API.

Don't hit people with bait-and-switch privacy policies.

Put things back where you found them or use garbage collection.

Clean up your own mess by refactoring, documenting and commenting with a full
test suite.

Sanitize your inputs before you insert.

Flush your input buffer.

Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and hack and paint and sing
and dance and play and work every day some.

When you send data out into the world, watch out for packet sniffers, hold
hands, and stick together.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and processes and even the little seed in
the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

------
steveklabnik
Why specifically is it that Tim Ferriss brings out the absolute worst in HN?
Most of these comments would not be tolerated on any other thread, yet when
it's Tim Ferris, all of a sudden random "LOL TIM SUXX!!!" comments get 20+
points?

Furthermore, I continue to be confused and amazed that someone who is clearly
a hacker and a damn good salesman is vilified around here, a place for hackers
trying to be good salesmen.

It's a very strange outlier.

~~~
dzlobin
People get upset that they toil away at their jobs all day and he gets rich
from seemingly nothing. Even though the truth is that he's a fantastic
salesman and a really smart guy who works hard selling his admittedly mediocre
books and himself.

------
fingerprinter
I think a chrome extension to block all HN links about Tim Ferriss is in
order, but leaves the HN comments (which are the actual interesting bits).

While I am genuinely impressed and shocked at his ability to self-promote, the
content is ALWAYS a waste of time. Meta-lessons about self promotion and
marketing are interesting...wish I could extract those without actually
reading the content as when TF speaks, I just seem to get more and more angry.

Asking a genuine question: What is a good hack to get over the feeling that
self-promotion is slimy? Not that I want to go all out like TF, but it would
be interesting to have it in ones bag of tricks that you can turn to when
needed.

~~~
greyman
What's so intolerable about Tim Ferriss? Just this month, I read portions of
his two books, and have found them quite interesting... he's not 100% correct,
but is able to generate new ideas or inspire. But maybe that just me here.

------
kmfrk
Not a very interesting article in general - I say that as someone who hates
Tim Feriss, but this part was genuinely interesting and novel at least to me:

He uses A/B testing for finding the best book title (and subtitle) and cover.

 _“Ferriss famously used Google AdWords and in-store A/B testing to come up
with the title to his first book [Full title: "The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape
9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich"].

His experimentation didn’t stop there, he decided to test various covers by
printing them on high quality paper and placing them on existing similar sized
books in the new non-fiction rack at Borders, Palo Alto. He sat with a coffee
and observed, learning which cover really was most appealing.”_

------
steveplace
I have a HN litmus test: if the comment section hates it, then pay attention.
Other themes that persist are google, facebook, twitter, zynga, dhh, ebooks,
mba, and pretty much anything that's acquired.

------
kayoone
I dont like Ferris. I read Tim Ferris 4 hour work week a while back. While he
has some valid points, overall i think its a big scam. Hes a genius in
marketing himself and his mediocre books that make things all so simple, but
thats about it.

------
nhangen
Call me cynical, but I have a hard time reading any piece on Tim without
thinking of it as a lure to buy something. It's not that he isn't good, it's
that he's either selling something, or not talking at all, and I don't trust
his intent.

------
scrrr
Hm. The people that hate/don't like T. Ferriss: Can you summarize in one
sentence why?

(I understand that we sometimes just don't like people for no conscious
reason, perhaps some of you failed following his book, but there must be
more?)

~~~
axod
I think the main reason is that he sells books about how to be successful, but
his only success is in selling those books. It's a scam. And the 'advice' is
ridiculous.

Most 'self help gurus' just prey on the stupid.

~~~
InfinityX0
You know he sold his previous company, right?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ferriss#cite_ref-7>

~~~
absconditus
Did you bother to look into his previous company at all?

------
lynx44
I am not a big fan of Tim Ferriss - he argues for a 4 hour work week, but in
one sample day of his I saw, he worked 4 hours on one article for the
Economist alone.

That said, this article is surprisingly interesting/useful.

~~~
steveklabnik
> he argues for a 4 hour work week, but

You're missing his message.

> In the second category, you have people who don’t love what they do. It
> comes back to that comfortable mediocrity. And for them, it’s about
> replacement. It’s not about reduction. For them, the goal is to get to the
> point where they’re doing what they love. And that is the objective of
> everything that I teach. _It’s not to be idle_, but it’s to get to the point
> where you control your time and allocate it to the things that will give you
> the most joy and also provide the greatest impact. For each person, that
> will be very individual.

Emphasis mine.

------
axod
tl;dr;

Advert for his new 'self help' book.

An advert for Sarah Palins book would be more relevant to HN IMHO.

~~~
kmfrk
Don't forget the part where he pays lip service to 37signals by speaking
against feature creep.

Ferris gets to use 37signals as a (completely uncritical) sales platform, and
in return he gives them a back rub. Quid pro quo I guess.

~~~
rhizome
Logrolling: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logrolling>

~~~
kmfrk
Never heard that word before. Definitely going into my vocabulary.

------
wccrawford
Wow, not what I was expecting at all.

First, hating your job is not better than merely tolerating it.

Yes, it'll spur you to change... Just enough to bring it to mediocrity. Hating
your job never turns into a job that is awesome.

If you have the energy to make it from hate to love, you have more than enough
energy to make it from mediocrity to love and sustain it.

From the title, I was hoping for an article about getting things done, even if
they aren't the best way. Aim for perfection, but don't insist on it. Get it
working and start earning money, and then make it better.

Oh well.

------
alnayyir
Why would anyone in this industry care what Timothy Ferriss thinks?

Have all the VCs, angels, entrepreneurs, programmers, and software PMs died?

~~~
yummyfajitas
He may be selling snake oil, but that doesn't mean we have nothing to gain by
learning how he sells.

~~~
neilk
If there are people here who want to follow Tim Ferriss' business plan (being
a false ubermensch to impress a gullible public into buying his books), I
don't want to be on this board.

