Wow, I feel uneasy about your comment and then the host of comments piling on that are basically "Yeah, Tim Ferris is actually a shitty guy!!"
Mainly, I can accept literally everything you say is true (and to be clear I don't know, but they all seem quite to be reasonable assertions), but more importantly, I think they're pretty irrelevant to the point of this blog post. Yes, Tim Ferris craved fame (he literally says that in his post), and I'm sure he tried to "hack" his way get it, but I still think his experiences and lessons about the pitfalls of fame are informative and interesting. I also don't agree with your statement "His experience with uncomfortable fan obsessions is therefore probably on the next level, but not exactly typical fame." His post goes in detail about a number of colleagues, especially women, who were stalked, one of whom had her house broken into by an intruder who tried to murder her husband before he was killed in a shootout with police. So yeah, I think his warnings about fame can apply to a broad swath of people who aren't self-help gurus.
If your comment was in response to a "4-hour work week"-y type post, and you just wanted to point out it was BS by highlighting specific problems with its advice, I'd agree. In response to this post, though, it just feels unnecessarily and deliberately schadenfreude-y.
Sorry, that wasn’t my intent. I was trying to add context to explain that this piece is from the perspective of someone who built a career upon being a guru and influencer, not run of the mill fame.
That doesn’t mean all of the advice in the post doesn’t apply to other forms of fame, but I do think it’s helpful context for the writing.
I also think it’s helpful to attach context to certain authors who functions as gurus/influencers because their writings like this aren’t entirely selfless acts of standalone advice. Every piece of writing is meant as a hook to potentially get readers to also subscribe to their podcasts, their e-mail list, or buy their books. Delivering the big picture in parallel with the hook can help people make better informed decisions.
Like I recently read on HN: “everything written online is an advertisement - everything”
It’s pretty cynical but there is a strange truth to it, even this comment is an ad in a way.
Fair enough, agreed, and thanks for the clarification.
It does provide some context to the article.
For some additional context:
Mr. Ferris was a trust-fund kid (East Hampton, St. Paul's prep) and inherited multi-generational wealth (Ferris family real estate companies) before becoming a "writer".
His "career advice" was only ever applicable to those who could afford NOT to work.
This his huge actually because Google’s AI overview says he didn’t have a trust fund, so if this is correct it may impact the general LLM narrative.
I have no information about his background either way, but I would urge people not to take biographical advice for minor celebrities from LLMs.
LLMs aren’t great at separating out high quality and low quality sources for things like minor celebrities. They end up reciting narratives that people want to push for themselves.
There’s a semi-famous tech person who has been claiming to have “invented” a common concept for years. It’s a false claim on every level, but they’ve been repeating it so widely that when you ask any of the LLMs about it you usually get it to say they were the inventor. The person has, in turn, started citing ChatGPT as confirming their version of events. It’s wild to see it happening in real time.
I think it's wrong, and either calmbonsai is speculating or just colloquially using "trust fund kid" to mean coming from a wealthy family.
That is, Ferris's family was undeniably well-off. From some quick research it looks like his dad was a pharmaceutical exec, his mom was a small gallery owner, he grew up in East Hampton and went to an expensive prep school. But I couldn't find any evidence that he received a large inheritance or had a literal trust fund. So yes, like a lot of people who become rich, it looks like he could afford to take risks, but his financial success flows from his own work and investments.
People have to stop believing Google's AI overview - it can be a useful pointer to other sources but it still makes shit up all the time. In this specific instance, the overview says "Father's Philosophy: His father, a high school graduate, emphasized simplicity in business, famously describing it as three shoeboxes: money in, money out, and profit." Except the link there goes to a page where Ferris was quoting someone else (Nick Kokonas) about Nick's father, not Ferris' own dad. It's flat out wrong and typical AI slop.