[HN Gopher] Reasons not to become famous (2020)
___________________________________________________________________
Reasons not to become famous (2020)
Author : Tomte
Score : 143 points
Date : 2025-12-21 15:07 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tim.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (tim.blog)
| avalys wrote:
| Most of his reasons are related to "you have to deal with crazy
| people who focus their crazy on you".
|
| Tim Ferris is known for somewhat hyperbolic self-help content. He
| talks about the millions of people who follow him or consume his
| content regularly.
|
| I'd suggest that the audience for people who obsessively consume
| this kind of self-help content is probably self-selected for a
| high proportion of crazy people.
|
| So, his experience is probably well outside the norm.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| When you make self-help content don't be surprised when you
| attract people that need help.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people are reasonably well-known in certain circles
| because of some show, podcast, book, etc. that's become
| something of a hit often with some calculated controversy. And,
| as you say, collects something of a following.
|
| There are also a ton of people who have never especially
| groomed the mass market though they're pretty well known in
| their industry.
| kristianc wrote:
| Dealing with crazy people must really cut into his four hour
| work week.
| showerst wrote:
| Plenty of celebrities that have nothing to do with self-help
| also attract their share of mentally ill folks, so I'm not sure
| that he's as far out of the norm as you think.
|
| A few folks in my social circles are _very_ minor public
| figures, more in the vein of "occasionally does a talking head
| segment on CNN" than "wins an Oscar" and even many of them have
| had to deal with obsessive attention from the unwell, threats,
| and people assuming they're rich and begging for money.
| Teever wrote:
| While it's possible that being famous for producing self help
| content does draw more crazies to you it certainly seems like
| crazies are drawn to famous regardless of what people are
| famous for.
|
| Like John Lennon just made music and he got shot and killed for
| it. Jodie Foster naively signed up for an erotic role in a
| movie and was stalked for it.
| nospice wrote:
| > So, his experience is probably well outside the norm.
|
| Absolutely not. I've been a minor OSS celebrity for a while and
| even on that scale, it attracted a good number online stalkers
| and harassers.
|
| Basically, if you're ever "newspaper famous", there will be
| completely unhinged people convinced that you're the one
| talking to them through their microwave, as well as rational
| people who make it their life mission to follow your around and
| "expose" you / put you down, simply because they think they
| deserved the limelight more than you.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| nit: _" rational people who make it their life mission to
| follow your around and "expose" you"_
|
| ^ those are not rational people.
| netsharc wrote:
| I find it fascinating that people can be convinced that
| they are very very rational, but they can also be convinced
| about crazy things, things like that the Earth is a flat
| disc, or that Bill Gates and the rest of the secret cabal
| of elites are going to put 5G receivers through a mandated
| vaccination, or that races other than their own need to be
| eradicated...
|
| It makes me worry that what if my belief that I'm rational
| is also skewed...
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| In my opinion the explanation is easy: it comes all down
| to conditional probability and Bayes' theorem:
|
| Conditional probability and Bayes' theorem tell you that
| how given some "ground belief" and new facts, the ground
| belief should be adjusted to incorporate the new
| evidence. Making this part of your daily life and belief
| system is what rationalism is about.
|
| But what happens if your ground truth is "fucked up" (in
| the sense of how an average person would see it)? Then it
| can easily happen that new evidence can perfectly
| explained by your ground truth/belief system and thus (in
| a very rational sense) actually strengthen it.
|
| Also keep in mind that a lot of things in the world are
| "messy", so it's not so hard to come up with a belief
| system that gives an "encompassing" framework that
| actually "explains" more things. If this system than
| becomes "strengthened" by incorporating lots of
| additional seen evidence (again using conditional
| probability and Bayes' theorem), this leads to a similar
| situation.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I was once in a high up position for a somewhat popular
| project. I can confirm that it attracts obsessive people with
| anger issues.
|
| It scales with popularity and changes with demographic. I've
| known non-famous CEOs who needed security details when
| visiting any conference or public event because they had
| stalkers who would reliably appear and try to get close to
| them.
|
| Even on HN I had a stalker. With a previous handle I wrote a
| long comment about a subject that someone found insightful.
| They scanned my whole comment history until they found a
| comment where I mentioned a company I had worked for, then
| did a process of elimination to figure out who I was, then
| started contacting me through email and other channels
| demanding more conversation and writing on the topic to
| answer their questions. It was very unsettling. I'm now more
| careful to leave out any identifying facts on HN.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wow, this makes me glad to not really be involved with
| anything publicly, not interact with the media, and not run
| popular web site or manage social media. The only thing I
| participate with under my real name is HN. In probably over
| a decade here, I got a grand total of one unhinged,
| threatening E-mail over something I posted, and no IRL
| stalkers. Looks like I've been lucky so far.
| firefax wrote:
| This is why you throw in false details every once in a
| while online, to throw people off.
| komali2 wrote:
| > Basically, if you're ever "newspaper famous", there will be
| completely unhinged people convinced that you're the one
| talking to them through their microwave
|
| I was interviewed by a semi-famous YouTuber in Taiwan (~100k
| subs) and reaped a ton of benefits. Had one bad encounter
| though: one of the viewers came into my restaurant and had a
| super bizarre interaction with me about it, standing next to
| me and talking well after close while I washed dishes,
| repeating talking points from the video and not getting
| increasingly strong hints to leave. Had to straight up throw
| him out in the end.
|
| Never really felt unsafe, but it was bizarre to have such an
| uncomfortable interaction with someone fawning over me like
| that, all because they saw me in a video with only 150k
| videos!
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > minor OSS celebrity
|
| Look into any kind of OSS drama and you'll realize the OSS
| community may have a _higher_ proportion of crazies.
| Minor49er wrote:
| What is the normal experience for a famous person?
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| Nope.
|
| Becoming well known even in a smallish circle of a few hundred
| or thousand people will likely immediately lead to stalkers and
| crazies coming out after you. My theory is they are directly
| drawn to people who make some sort of splash, for whatever
| reason, even if it's local and small.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even just being a starter on a high school sports team will
| get stalkers once in a while.
| Sam6late wrote:
| I think the general idea is sound, although I have changed my
| mind with our current economic system where one needs to fend
| for his own with no safety net. I mean upon seeing Chris Rock
| say in an interview saying that he would be willing to kill to
| become famous, I am reconsidering this issue.I refused once an
| opportunity to act with some big shot crew saying that I would
| not tolerate people and the way they deal with well-known,
| famouse people. I could not imagine how I could deal with the
| pressure. Now after 60 I am just looking back at missed
| opportunities but still content that 'I did it my way', and
| hope my children would have better future.
| skeptic_ai wrote:
| Run any popular web community and you'll see the amount of
| craze. Got some random guy sending 100+ emails that will sue
| and will talk to USA gov because I break the law - for putting
| ads on my website.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think it's a pretty safe assumption that all the comments
| here about "normal non-self help guru celebrities don't get
| stalked as much" are from men. I think literally every woman
| who is even semi-moderately in the public eye has stories about
| stalkers, regular death threats and rape fantasies, etc.
|
| Glad to hear other commenters are pushing back against this
| proposition that Ferris is somehow a special case, because it's
| a story I've heard from lots and lots of people in the public
| eye, regardless of their area of expertise.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even men will get the stalkers. maybe not as many, but they
| get them.
| levocardia wrote:
| I make content and have a following that's ~1/10th the size of
| what he claims to have in this 2020 post, and I have had,
| within a rounding error, zero percent of the crazy encounters
| he had. YMMV. If I were a political influencer or a self-help
| guru, yes probably that would be different, but audience
| selection effects are a real factor here.
|
| This article always strikes me as insane because he -- a famous
| person with a history of serious mental illness and suicidal
| thoughts which he's discussed publicly -- has a moderately bad
| encounter with a person on the internet and decide that he now
| needs to purchase a firearm and carry it with him in public.
| techblueberry wrote:
| This is actually one of my all time favorite blog posts, and his
| concept of the tribe, the village, and the city, is a mental
| model I often come back to when thinking about the dysfunction in
| large communities.
| rwmj wrote:
| Ironically I've only ever heard of him because this blog post
| was previously on HN.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| the idea of the tribe/village/city is a model that he stole
| from the book "Blitzscaling" by Reed Hoffman, I guess?
|
| Or did Hoffmann steal from Ferriss?
| lateforwork wrote:
| He didn't mention one of the biggest reasons for not becoming
| famous: you'll have less room for mistakes. Take Scott Adams, the
| Dilbert cartoonist, as an example. He made some racist remarks, a
| mistake he could've recovered from if he wasn't famous. But
| because he is, he's now marked for life, and there's no do-over.
| postflopclarity wrote:
| > he's now marked for life, and there's no do-over.
|
| sincere apologies, show of remorse, and substantially +
| genuinely changing the toxic behaviors goes a long way. there
| are several celebrities who have done "unforgivable" things and
| yet been forgiven by the public. the problem is that the kind
| of person liable to make such remarks is not the kind of person
| likely to do some introspection to realize they're being a
| terrible person.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Yes, you can do some repair, but the point is, it is much
| harder if you're famous. Being under the public eye--all the
| time--has to be one of the top reasons to not be famous.
| tim333 wrote:
| Scott Adams position was kind of he'd done nothing wrong and
| would keep on doing it.
| watwut wrote:
| I mean common. The supposed marked for life people are coming
| back again and again. Even or especially when the supposed
| mistake is genuine ideological convinction they are actively
| propagating.
|
| Adams mistaken remarks included holocaust denial.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I don't think that's an accurate summary of his situation. He
| didn't just make a single comment that marked him for life.
| He's been doubling down for years and seems to be constantly
| running head-first into drama.
|
| I didn't have any opinions on his as a person other than
| enjoying some of his comics years ago. Then he started showing
| up in Twitter debates over and over again and there's no
| erasing years of bizarre claims and statements from his public
| opinion. He's definitely embracing his fame as a platform to
| push those views, not suffering victimization for one mistake
| years ago.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Yeah, Scott Adams may not be a good example for the point I
| was trying to make, which is: Being under the public eye--all
| the time--has to be one of the top reasons to not be famous.
| The cost of any mistake is much higher when you are famous.
|
| Another reason is to have normal interactions with other
| people. If you are famous you can't have normal interactions
| because you're treated with deference.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Take Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist, as an example. He
| made some racist remarks, a mistake he could've recovered from
| if he wasn't famous. But because he is, he's now marked for
| life, and there's no do-over.
|
| From my echo chamber, I would rather claim that by these
| "politically incorrect" remarks and the controversies following
| it, he rather got a second wave of fans.
| ljlolel wrote:
| Dude did not just make one racist comment. I've read some of
| his books and they're dripping with racism. He's been
| consistently racist for decades and still is.
| thunderfork wrote:
| I disagree with this framing, but I do think it's a relevant
| example - being famous seems to change the math on "changing
| your mind" for some people.
|
| If Scott Adams had said some racist things at a work dinner,
| gotten written up, maybe he'd have moved past it... but now
| being Controversial(tm) is a core part of his brand, he's
| doubled down and doubled down...
| riazrizvi wrote:
| Doomed for life, lol. The point of putting yourself out there
| is to show the world who you are, so you can connect with the
| right people. He showed the world a bit more, and better
| targeted his group of people. I bet there are plenty of people
| that still connect with him.
| ben_w wrote:
| > He made some racist remarks, a mistake he could've recovered
| from if he wasn't famous.
|
| My knowledge of the USA is imperfect. Certain stereotypes of
| the USA from the perspective of Americans do make it across the
| Atlantic to here. Are they correct or incorrect when they say
| the worse part of Thanksgiving is having to meet the racist in-
| laws?
|
| Unless that stereotype is completely invented (and I accept
| that it might be, after all the UK had Boris Johnson), then
| "could've" doesn't imply "would've".
| bhaak wrote:
| Recent examples rather show that you might be marked for life
| but most people don't care how racist you are.
| knorker wrote:
| Uh, no. Scott Adams is not a one-mistake person. This is a
| years-and-years thing.
|
| You're really rewriting history, here.
|
| I have no problems forgiving people for mistakes, but no this
| is absolutely not one of those cases.
| NotGMan wrote:
| You're projecting. He is not marked for life: it's YOU who
| thinks he is.
|
| Not him. He doesn't care what some clown online thinks of him.
| lateforwork wrote:
| Did you notice he lost his source of income? Maybe it is not
| just me!
| senshan wrote:
| Did it impact his quality of life? How?
| theodric wrote:
| Having been briefly regionally known when I was a kid, I can tell
| you that it gets fucking annoying having to deal with your
| adoring public after the novelty of it wears off. Sometimes
| you're just in line for the toilet and really need to piss.
| silexia wrote:
| The four hour workweek was inspirational for me starting my own
| business in 2009. My business now employs 250 full time people
| and helps thousands of clients. I remember HN back then was all
| entrepreneurs like me and everyone was excited about the free
| market. I feel like now a lot of people in countries with too
| much government regulations are here and are downers to people
| who want to build their own thing.
|
| This post is on the money. Being wealthy has almost all of the
| benefits of being famous.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I remember HN back then was all entrepreneurs like me and
| everyone was excited about the free market. I feel like now a
| lot of people in countries with too much government regulations
| are here and are downers to people who want to build their own
| thing.
|
| Since I am perhaps such a "downer person" who lives in such a
| country: what should such people then do?
| silexia wrote:
| If you are an entrepreneur and a creative thinker, you
| absolutely should be a part of this community.
|
| If you are a socialist who believes all business success is
| just luck and people who earn riches are inherently bad, you
| probably would like Reddit better.
| brap wrote:
| >My business now employs 250 full time people
|
| You sure about that?
| silexia wrote:
| CoalitionTechnologies.com
| Aurornis wrote:
| If you're not familiar with Tim Ferriss, you should know that
| there is always more to the story than the narrative he shares.
| He's one of the most charismatic and charming writers and
| podcasters out there and has a strong ability to build trust
| through his writing. However, he also has a long history of
| stretching the truth and spinning history in his favor, often by
| omitting important facts.
|
| One example: His 4 Hour Work Week book really was on the New York
| Times Best Seller list for a long time like he brags about in
| this post, but he has also bragged in other contexts about all of
| the manipulation and engineering (including mass purchasing books
| to artificially inflate sales numbers) that goes into gaming the
| New York Times Best Seller List.
|
| On the topic of being famous, he's not typically famous like a
| celebrity. He built his career around being a self-help guru who
| will bring you the secrets to success in business, life,
| relationships, and even cooking. He's talked about how he selects
| his writing topics based on how to present solutions for people's
| inner desires, like financial freedom or impressing people for
| dating success. He puts himself at the center of these writings,
| presenting himself as the conduit for these revelations. He was
| even early in social media and blogging and experimented with
| social media engagements and paid events where you get to come
| hang out with Tim Ferriss and learn his secrets, encouraging his
| fans to idolize him and his wisdom dispensing abilities.
|
| So his relationship with his fans isn't typical fame in the style
| of a celebrity or actor. He's more of an early self-help guru who
| embraced social media and blogging early on. His experience with
| uncomfortable fan obsessions is therefore probably on the next
| level, but not exactly typical fame.
|
| EDIT to add why I know this: Tim Ferriss literally wrote the book
| on how to abuse remote work. His Four Hour Work Week book
| encourages readers to talk their boss into working remote then to
| outsource their work to low paid overseas assistants so they have
| more time to travel the world. It encourages things like setting
| up an e-mail auto responder and only responding to your coworkers
| once a week whine you're "working remote" and setting up your own
| side job while traveling the world. If you've ever had a remote
| work job get ruined by people abusing it, chances are good that
| those people had read a Tim Ferriss book somewhere along the way.
| vasco wrote:
| Wasn't he also encouraging people to do medical tests on
| themselves and take acid to work / regular life for a while?
| Aurornis wrote:
| I haven't followed everything he has produced, but he has a
| history of identifying rising topics and riding their
| popularity. He leaned into the psychedelic self-help movement
| heavily when it was first becoming popular.
|
| The last time he popped up on one of my feeds he was talking
| to someone about the benefits of sobriety and moderating
| alcohol consumption, so he might be pivoting toward the next
| wave of reducing drug and alcohol use, though I don't know.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Mr. Ferris is akin to Gary Vaynerchuk in that they're just
| trend-riders.
| luxuryballs wrote:
| sounds like micro-dosing, now I'm caught flat footed in this
| thread wondering if I should have a negative view of it, in
| my mind responsible performance enhancement is not the same
| as dangerous or irresponsible drug abuse and addiction, but
| if I'm wrong I would like to figure it out sooner rather than
| later
| vasco wrote:
| What I'll say is that all these performance enhancement
| bros should take less drugs and focus more on a good night
| of sleep.
| newppc wrote:
| This is spot on. I was an impressionable young male that loved
| that book and took to heart the ideas. Looking back it's a
| mixed bag - the ideas teach you about delegation and thinking
| like an owner, but the bigger message that work sucks and you
| should figure out how to avoid it kinda hurts people who would
| be more ambitious.
|
| An OG "digital nomad blogger bro" that took it all the way to
| the top!
|
| At the end of the day his voice is a refreshing twist and a net
| positive but with a ton of caveats.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| As was pointed out earlier, Ferris was a trust-fund kid and
| never needed to earn a living.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > outsource their work to low paid overseas assistants
|
| Literally every business is based on the idea of tacking on a
| margin onto someone else's work and profiting from it. Markets
| are based on imperfect information distribution at the end of
| the day.
|
| It's likely the very company he'd be doing that too is already
| doing the exact same thing with their customer support (or
| "success" as they call it now), and their subcontractors
| themselves outsource various jobs. But I guess we've been
| conditioned to accept that as good because the boss is
| pocketing the difference, vs the lowly employee.
|
| > only responding to your coworkers once a week
|
| I struggle to think there is a company in the world where this
| kind of behavior would fly, but if there is then they must be
| satisfied with the work (or lack thereof I guess) and so in
| that case is it any worse than just slacking off at work and
| browsing HN for that matter?
|
| ---
|
| Now should you do this? No, but not because you should feel bad
| for anyone. You should not do it because it's really hard to
| find someone good enough (and cheap enough) to deliver the same
| kind of quality you do and worthy of trusting them with your
| reputation. But if you know a magical place where to find such
| unicorns, go right ahead!
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Literally every business is based on the idea of tacking on
| a margin onto someone else's work and profiting from it.
|
| Which is fine if everyone knows what's happening. Nobody
| assumes that their grocery stores or Best Buy are operating
| as charities that take 0% margin.
|
| What's not okay is signing up to a company as an employee,
| being given access to their Slack and Git, and then handing
| those credentials and source code over to someone you hired
| on Fiverr so you can go vacation more. The numerous problems
| with this should be obvious.
|
| > I struggle to think there is a company in the world where
| this kind of behavior would fly, but if there is then they
| must be satisfied with the work (or lack thereof I guess)
|
| That's the thing about most Tim Ferriss advice: Much of it is
| fanciful and unrealistic. The takeaway isn't literally that
| you should be responding to email once a week, it's that you
| need to be pushing the limits of how much you can get away
| with not responding to things and ignoring conversations with
| your coworkers. The email autoresponder is held up as a North
| Star ideal of what you're trying to do: Hide from work and
| avoid contributing to the team you're on.
|
| As for companies being happy with it: They're generally not!
| The story in the book is to gradually push the limits of what
| you can get away with. It suggests working extra hard when
| you know your boss is watching and doing things like
| sandbagging your productivity before you go remote. The book
| has this whole idea that your job is only temporary anyway
| until your side hustle takes over and replaces your income
| (dropshipping T-shirts is the example used in the book) so
| being a productive employee isn't a priority.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > What's not okay is signing up to a company as an employee
|
| Oh no, someone dared to lie _to a business_ , the horror!
| Only the reverse is acceptable.
|
| You should not do this because you haven't found a unicorn
| that is both cheap and worthy of entrusting with your
| reputation. If you find such a magical unicorn, you should
| absolutely do this and nobody will notice since the unicorn
| is upholding your standards.
|
| How much of a "unicorn" this is depends on your own
| reputation, the work quality you're expected to do, and so
| on. If you're _that_ stupid to hand over credentials to a
| bottom-of-the-barrel gig worker website, you would 've lost
| those credentials in the next phishing campaign anyway, so
| the outcome for the company isn't any different - they made
| a stupid hire (whether said stupidity is done by the
| employee or the subcontractor is of little consolation).
|
| > pushing the limits of how much you can get away with
|
| Again that's literally what every company does - with
| raising prices, reducing quality (doing their own
| outsourcing - which this place considers ok because _the
| boss_ is pocketing the margin) all the time. Every A /B
| test is a test of how much they can get away with.
|
| But again we seem to have this double-standard where
| businesses are given leeway (and even applauded for) for a
| lot of noxious behavior while individuals are punished. Of
| course businesses have an outsized ability to control the
| narrative so no surprise there.
|
| > They're generally not!
|
| A company is never happy though. In their ideal desires you
| would work 24/7 for zero pay, and even _then_ they would
| not be happy that you are human and physically limited in
| how much output you can produce.
|
| I've seen all the behaviors you mention in people that are
| working in the office - and worse, some are _actually_
| working, but so bad at it it would be better if they were
| actually slacking off; at least they 'd enjoy themselves.
|
| > your job is only temporary anyway
|
| In tech it kind of is though? See layoffs and such.
|
| Again I'm not defending the practice and I'm the first one
| to loathe the enshittification of everything. But if shit
| behavior appears to be profitable and the local maximum the
| market has settled on, I don't think it's fair for
| individuals to be held at different standards.
| jama211 wrote:
| Not who you were just speaking with, but I've never
| agreed with the emotional side of a comment so much
| whilst disagreeing with the actionable choices side so
| much.
|
| In reality, the truth probably lies somewhere in the
| middle. I would draw the line before outsourcing my own
| job, but I've definitely sandbagged my own productivity
| after being poorly treated by a company in the past and
| still have no regrets about it.
|
| If you're looking for common ground with who you're
| speaking with rather than trying to make your point so
| firmly, I think you'd also agree there is a level of
| meeting in the middle that is totally reasonable in how
| hard you should push such things, depending on who you
| work for and how they treat you.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > the actionable choices side so much
|
| I just have a knee-jerk reaction to the double standard
| between companies and individuals. Enshittification
| appears to be the new normal, no reason they shouldn't
| get a bit of their own medicine.
|
| > meeting in the middle that is totally reasonable
|
| Yes of course - employee-owned companies and the
| occasional outliers that give employees a tangible stake
| in the outcome. But those generally would not be
| vulnerable to this attack to begin with since employee
| effort is appropriately rewarded.
|
| But for the average company, doing the bare minimum to
| keep your job _is_ the winning strategy since doing more
| will not result in a proportional reward.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Oh no, someone dared to lie to a business, the horror!
| Only the reverse is acceptable.
|
| I never said businesses lying to employees is acceptable.
| You seem to be arguing something else that I haven't
| written: General class war content where everything is
| viewed through the lens of business versus employees, and
| since businesses are bad then anything employees do is
| fair game.
|
| The reason I know so much about Tim Ferriss' remote work
| garbage isn't because I was on the business side of your
| simplified view. I was _a coworker_ of someone trying to
| practice these techniques.
|
| The fatal flaw in your line of logic is that it can only
| view interactions as 1:1 between employee and the
| business. What you're missing is that these workplace
| games punish the team members most of all. When you're on
| a team of 3-4 people and 1 of them is gallivanting around
| the world, responding to messages once a day if you're
| lucky, and submitting PRs produced by the cheapest
| overseas "assistant" they can find (modern version being
| ChatGPT, obviously) then you start to realize the
| problem: When _the team_ has an assignment and one person
| is playing games instead of doing work, the rest of the
| team has to do more work.
|
| It's outsourcing your work to your teammates, basically.
|
| The obvious rebuttal is that managers need to stop this,
| and they do. It takes time, though. At some companies it
| takes 6-12 months to build a case to fire someone. The
| Tim Ferriss book also has defensive advice about working
| extra hard to impress your boss and taking steps to avoid
| having your lack of work discovered by your boss. Notably
| absent is content about being respectful of your
| coworkers.
|
| So before you jump in and defend everything any employee
| might do to be selfish, remember that it's not just the
| company they're extracting from. It's their coworkers.
| And being on the receiving end of this behavior as a
| coworker sucks.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > lying to employees
|
| Not necessarily to employees, but in general - could be
| customers or other businesses too.
|
| > everything is viewed through the lens of business
| versus employees
|
| Not business vs employee but business vs individual.
| There's a lot of shit in the business world that is
| considered good when done by a company, but bad when
| doing by an individual.
|
| Corporation-on-consumer fraud has been normalized.
| Outlandish claims in advertising are even enshrined in
| law so that you can't even sue for that (not that it
| would go anywhere either way).
|
| It sometimes _correlates_ with class but has nothing to
| do with class per-se (in fact it 's very cheap to set up
| an LLC and engage in a lot of dubious practices that
| would land someone in jail if practiced under their
| personal capacity).
|
| > I was a coworker of someone trying to practice these
| techniques.
|
| I've been a coworker of some incompetent employees too -
| in fact it's even sadder that they _didn 't_ practice
| those techniques because at least then _someone_ would
| benefit - in their case nobody was benefiting, not even
| them.
|
| I'm not blaming them though; they match what is expected
| of a "senior" developer nowadays and passed all the
| interviews. It's the same reason my coffee is now both
| smaller _and_ more expensive, but applied to employment.
| Companies are welcome pay more to get better talent.
|
| The other employees who take on the slack without extra
| pay are engaging in philanthropy so the company has no
| reason to fire the slackers and hire more expensive
| talent if ultimately everything works out anyway.
|
| The company _could_ of course preemptively compensate
| them for the extra workload, but if you believe this
| actually happens I have a very nice bridge to sell you.
|
| > At some companies it takes 6-12 months to build a case
| to fire someone
|
| That sounds like a hiring or performance management
| problem. In the meantime, if someone can pocket 12 months
| of salary as a result of such incompetence, more power to
| them - it ain't my problem to solve unless I get a cut of
| the savings!
|
| > being on the receiving end of this behavior as a
| coworker sucks
|
| It gives the few that actually _do_ work more leverage to
| negotiate higher salaries /fees/benefits. But of course
| you have to capitalize on it instead of engaging in
| charity/volunteering.
|
| Edit: funny thing about ChatGPT and LLMs, companies are
| intentionally _encouraging_ and tracking their usage,
| thinking _more_ slop is somehow going to get them out of
| the hole they dug themselves in.
| jama211 wrote:
| You both make some good points
| piker wrote:
| Is that right? I had no idea this was the core thesis of that
| guy's book! I just assumed it was an "automate the boring
| stuff, get organized and delegate" kind of platitudes. If he's
| part of the movement that has people ripping off employers and
| their co-workers like that then, frankly, screw him.
| Aurornis wrote:
| He's great at double-speak. The book is generally about
| automating things, eliminating unnecessary things from your
| life, delegating to assistants and so on.
|
| But then the examples he gives about going remote,
| manipulating your boss, outsourcing your work to assistants,
| and setting up a T-shirt drop shipping company to replace
| your income reveal the reality of his advice. Just imagine
| having one of those people as your team member and you
| realize how much it becomes about offloading work to the team
| and performing poorly, even though the headlines are feel-
| good advice about simplifying your life.
|
| Even the title becomes part of the double-speak. He writes
| about how it's not meant to be taken literally because
| building your lifestyle requires hard work, but then he'll
| share anecdotes and stories from "readers" who are living
| their dream lifestyle while only spending a couple hours per
| week responding to e-mail.
|
| EDIT to add: He wrote another book about fitness that does
| the same thing. It has basics about eating healthy and
| exercising that make a lot of sense, but then it also
| includes completely unrealistic scenarios about putting on
| impossible amounts of muscle in short periods of time using
| his techniques. It's the kind of content that sounds like
| you've been given the secrets to beating the system by a guru
| who learned it all if you're unfamiliar with the topic, but
| leaves anyone educated in the subject rolling their eyes at
| the impossible results being promised.
| codegeek wrote:
| I personally have a hard time taking anyone seriously who claim
| things like "4 hour work week". It is a mockery of every real
| successful person who has worked extremely hard especially
| early on and it sets a dangerous expectations/entitlement among
| young people. Unless you are a trust fund baby, you are not
| going to live a good life by working 4 hour work weeks
| especially in your younger years. You just won't.
|
| The fact is that if you want to live a good life, you have to
| grind it out in your early years. Not saying everyone has to
| grind the startup culture or 80 hour week but thinking that you
| can swing a 4 hour workweek at 25 is just idiotic and not
| realistic.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| I get what you want to say but on the other hand the 40 hour
| week - which is kind of the standard in modern capitalism -
| also ain't it. Especially if you work in a toxic job you hate
| just for the money.
|
| > that if you want to live a good life, you have to grind it
| out in your early years
|
| I think if you have to "grind it out" you should probably
| look for something else. Meaning if your job feels like a
| grind don't waste your life on it.
|
| Having money is good but it's not the most important
| ingredient to a good life
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A 40 hour work week is not even half your waking hours.
| That would be seen a a luxurious life for most of human
| history, where you basically had to work dawn to dusk just
| to survive.
| prmoustache wrote:
| That doesn't mean it is optimal. I know that when I was
| working at 80% I was as productive as at 100%.
|
| I eventually gave up when I realize that my colleagues
| were paid 20% more only to procrastinate that additional
| time at the workplace.
| austhrow743 wrote:
| Source?
|
| Afaik we didn't even have what could be considered work
| until agriculture.
| jimmydddd wrote:
| It was a metaphor. It's not meant to be literal. It helps to
| prompt questions like -- "why do we create the fiction that
| every job from janitor, to scientist to marketing requires
| precisely 40 hrs per week, every week?" It also helps explore
| ideas like, "if I got an illness and could only work one hour
| a day to keep my business running, how would I do it?" In
| other words, it's helpful to exlore our use of time.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I remember reading his books and thinking "This guy seems
| really insecure". The quote he opens the article does not
| surprise me at all - his books come across as if he really
| wants fame and is speaking to an audience who similarly needs
| to be smarter, more clever, richer, more loved.
|
| However, I don't think this is unique to Tim Ferriss. I think
| this is the dynamic behind fame itself. People who are really
| secure in their worth don't spend their time looking for casual
| external validation from strangers, and they also don't spend
| their emotional energy idolizing strangers and distant figures.
| They spend it on their family and close friends, and seek it in
| return from those same people.
|
| It's been interesting watching myself drop out of the popular
| discourse as I got more secure in myself and more inclined to
| spend time, money, and energy close to home. Pop culture isn't
| made for us, because who got time for that shit? Crass
| consumerism isn't made for us, because we don't spend money on
| things we don't need in an effort to feel better about
| ourselves. Most of the transactions that make modern America go
| don't make us go, because, well, if you're happy with yourself
| then why do you need them?
|
| But I'm glad I realized that before getting famous. Because
| there was a time, in my teens and twenties, when I wanted
| nothing more than to be adored by the masses. And like Tim
| Ferriss says, there isn't always a reset button where you can
| suddenly become un-famous if it becomes too much of a drag.
| SecondHandTofu wrote:
| People who write books are disproportionately going to be a
| bit narcissistic too.
|
| https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/you-dont-hate-polyamory-
| you...
| tayo42 wrote:
| I wish I was brave enough to try to get away with soemthing
| like that though.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| 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.
| Aurornis wrote:
| 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.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| 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.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Fair enough, agreed, and thanks for the clarification.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| 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.
| tolerance wrote:
| > So his relationship with his fans isn't typical fame in the
| style of a celebrity or actor. He's more of an early self-help
| guru who embraced social media and blogging early on. His
| experience with uncomfortable fan obsessions is therefore
| probably on the next level, but not exactly typical fame.
|
| I think your framing is outdated. It sounds more like his
| relationship with his fans anticipated how "fame" is typically
| thought of today. Remix this entire comment with Mr. Beast as
| the subject and see if that helps my point.
|
| Edit:
|
| He even says himself:
|
| > [ _..._ ] I'm not really famous. Beyonce and Brad Pitt are
| truly famous. They cannot walk around in public anywhere in the
| world. I am a micro public figure with a monthly audience in
| the millions or tens of millions. There are legions of people
| on Instagram alone with audiences of this size. New platforms
| offer new speed. Some previous unknowns on TikTok, for example,
| have attracted millions of followers in a matter of weeks.
|
| So maybe not quite Mr. Beast level even...but certainly in that
| vein albeit a few degrees below.
| Animats wrote:
| Oh. That kind of "famous".
| gsky wrote:
| 4 hour work week, rich dad poor dad, get rich quick books are
| nothing but trash but somehow they became best sellers.
| khazhoux wrote:
| The "somehow" is obvious, innit?
| why-o-why wrote:
| Wow, I thought his first book was insufferable, but I've never
| read his blog: after reading the first half, that's just who this
| guy is. The structure he outlines seems so alien to me, and out
| of touch. People get lucky then think their luck really isn't
| luck, and then the just swallow their own tail. He's created
| lifestyle porn for impressionable young men who will never have
| his luck. I think he's got a good grift. Good for him, he won.
|
| It's raining downvotes!
| actionfromafar wrote:
| It's raining men! And downvotes from them!
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| I always found Zenhabits.net muuuuch more inspiring than Tim
| Ferriss
|
| Yes, I even hvae his 4h-work-week-book on the shelf
| nine_k wrote:
| "You cannot be important and independent at the same time."
|
| (Think whatever you want about the author; the observation is
| correct.)
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| What an unbearably tedious fellow he is. What was worse? The
| boasting, the pathetic pleading for understanding, or the
| sanctimonious preaching? Too rich, too famous, too hurt; how bad?
| It's 2025. Did he become less tedious since he wrote this piece?
| firefoxd wrote:
| I've had my 15 minutes of fame, twice. 30 minutes I guess. Each
| time I met people that freaked me out.
|
| In 2018, after the news picked up my story, I met the "true"
| inventor uber. This guy emailed 100s of documents as proof,
| newspaper clippings, a bunch of pictures with people circled in
| red, after all that I said "I'm not entirely sure which part you
| invented." This man "randomly" bumped into me in a cafe to
| explain it to me. He had driven hundreds of miles to be there.
|
| On my second stint a few years later, I went to a Dan Lyons' book
| signing with my wife. Dan spotted me in the audience and asked me
| to come up on stage and tell my story to the audience. I was
| completely unprepared.
|
| Later a lady accosted me to get my address and phone number so
| she can send me stuff. She was persistent, so I said I can give
| her my email so we can communicate further. It didn't sit well
| with her. A few days later I got an email from her. It was a few
| thousand words of threats, and I was going to be reported for
| violating Australia's laws. She had contacted ABC Australia to
| get my story retracted. I'm in California...
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I get so much scam bait and phishing emails that I don't bother
| reading I can't imagine even bothering to read threats and
| similar crazy person emails.
| AaronAPU wrote:
| Interesting read. In modern life almost everyone experiences at
| least a brief if perhaps isolated/niche version of fame. We are
| just so heavily connected in so many different networks, it just
| statistically is likely to happen at some point.
|
| It is a mixed bag for sure, but in terms of risk/reward it is
| best to have an accurate understanding of both sides so you can
| make damn sure you are optimizing for the right thing.
| senshan wrote:
| Very interesting blog post, but...
|
| At the age of 29 he wrote a self-help book. The most fascinating
| part is that the general public took it so enthusiastically and
| so seriously.
|
| Really? Wisdom dispensed by a 29 years old? This aspect of
| general public keeps me amazed over and over again.
| tim333 wrote:
| It's not a bad book. https://www.amazon.com/Hour-Workweek-
| Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp...
|
| It's mostly about starting a small business by someone who'd
| started a small business selling nutritional supplements.
| senshan wrote:
| I have my doubts: "Act only according to that maxim whereby
| you can at the same time will that it should become a
| universal law."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
| bhaak wrote:
| I'm actively involved in two communities. The first is the
| NetHack roguelike community, and the second is the fan community
| of a German internet broadcaster that has existed, in one form or
| another, for about 25 years.
|
| On average, I'd say both communities are equally kind and
| welcoming. I'd also argue that both contain roughly the same
| proportion of people who are unhinged and tend to go way over the
| top. The difference lies in _how_ they go over the top.
|
| In the NetHack community, you have people who start and
| immediately abandon 200,000 games during a tournament because
| they're trying to roll the ideal starting conditions for a very
| specific playstyle. Then there are the Bobby Fischer types who
| create their own ultra-hard forks of the game because vanilla
| NetHack is too easy for them. There's also plenty of criticism.
| Not everyone is happy with everything, but it's mostly civil. The
| worst you usually get is something like, "The dev team sucks;
| they ruined the game with their latest changes."
|
| By contrast, in the internet broadcaster's community there's a
| very toxic minority that claims to have stopped watching years
| ago, yet continues to hate on the creators because the channel
| took a direction they didn't like. Employees get mobbed and
| bullied, everything is torn down, and there's a concerted effort
| to ruin the fun for everyone else.
|
| I mean, I can understand that if you spent your formative teenage
| years "with" these people, it really hurts when that influence
| disappears. But can a parasocial relationship really go that far,
| that you drift into this kind of behavior?
|
| How can someone be so hurt that they hold a grudge for years,
| keep hate-watching the creators, and invest so much time and
| energy into such a destructive hobby?
| cevn wrote:
| I was a big fan of NH until 3.6, now it is too difficult so I
| switched to Evilhack which has been a breath of fresh air.
| bhaak wrote:
| There have been various improvements over 3.6.0 during the
| development of the 3.6 branch. If you haven't you should give
| the not yet released 3.7 version a try. It's on
| hardfought.org for online play if you don't want to compile
| it yourself.
|
| But you can't be claiming that 3.6 is too difficult if you're
| comfortable playing EvilHack. EvilHack is clearly more
| difficult than vanilla. :D
|
| But I get the breath of fresh air. I was always playing
| Valkyries or Wizards and when I first entered the Tourist
| quest, I was hooked on getting more different levels and that
| was one of my main focus when developing UnNetHack.
| schoen wrote:
| I met a top-tier actor once in 2014 because he was working on
| something non-Hollywood-related with a friend of mine. Out of
| curiosity, I looked at his Twitter feed to see if he had anything
| to say publicly about that project.
|
| It was _insane_. It was full of people randomly asking to meet up
| with him in tons of different cities, people asking him to review
| their movie scripts /theatrical projects, people asking him for
| money, and women either offering to have sex with him or asking
| him to marry them. All in public, and just day after day like
| that.
| wmeredith wrote:
| It's not hard to see how celebrities become out of touch so
| quickly if you have an ounce of empathy.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The cURL author also receives lots of crazy emails because his
| address is listed in the licenses of any product that embeds it
| (and unfortunately some of those licenses are _too_ accessible to
| the idiot): https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/02/19/i-will-
| slaughter-you/
| alexjplant wrote:
| ...that guy was in the throes of a psychotic episode [1]:
| The long and full apology is inserted below. [...] He (?) also
| says he suffers from schizophrenia. I'm happy for "Al"
| that he's getting help and tries to move on. For me, this
| apology at least finally proves that this threat is over and in
| fact never was intended literally. I hope I will never receive
| anything close to that again. The apology in full
| I am Al Nocai. When I contacted you initially, I believed you
| to be a Dan E., from texas, or a Dan S from delaware or a Dan
| from Minneapolis. I didn't do my research, and when I found it
| was actually you and you had nothing to do with my situation, I
| became indignant and even more of an asshole. You had every
| right to be mad, and publish as you did. I'm not trying to
| justify what I did, there is none, I should have been a lot
| more cordial. I just want to provide context around what was
| happening, I believe I at least owe you why. I had to
| retire from my career do to schizophrenia. Again, I should have
| not let my delusions go to the point they did nor should I have
| acted the way it does. My illness doesn't detract from the
| rashness of my actions.
|
| [1] https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2021/08/09/nocais-apology/
| erelong wrote:
| Are there tips for becoming wealthy without becoming famous,
| then?
| eszed wrote:
| Everything in this article rings true to my limited and glancing
| observations of the phenomenon.
|
| In a previous life I worked in an industry (entertainment) where
| becoming a celebrity is an occupational hazard. A few times I was
| treated as if I were famous in very, very, _extremely_ minor ways
| - met at the stage door, followed down the street, stared at or
| photographed in a restaurant or public transportation - and it 's
| super destabilizing and just... Weird. I was pleased to be able
| to turn the corner and "disappear", as it were.
|
| I also had conversations about this with colleagues who were,
| let's say, well-known (but not even close to globally famous),
| and the shit they had to put up with was, if anything worse than
| described in the article - particularly when (this is theatre and
| independent film we're talking about) their profile didn't come
| with the income that could support, say, private security, or a
| secluded property. They were doing what they were doing in order
| to work on interesting projects with interesting people - and the
| ability to assure _that_ was their favorite "perk" of their
| profile - and the "occupational hazard" framing comes from them.
|
| Another (very not-famous, though you're almost guaranteed to have
| seen them in a supporting role in something they've done) person
| I worked with a couple of times has a globally "you know their
| face, at least" famous spouse, who got that way because they're
| an immensely talented and committed artist; someone I've admired
| for years. I never met that person, because a) they'd have had to
| deal with a lot of hassle getting into the theatre, and b) their
| presence would have been an overwhelming distraction from the
| (interesting, but low-profile) piece we were doing.
|
| Fame is not something any well-adjusted person should wish for,
| and I have a good deal of sympathy for the people who seem to be
| destabilized by that level of attention.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I don't know who that guy is but my small and very limited in
| scope (a particular sport) and radius (regional level) experience
| with fame made me wary for life of ever being famous and I don't
| really understand why people would seek that.
|
| Just the fact that complete strangers were recognizing me and
| chatting to me like I was their best friend while I had no clue
| who they were was a really uncomfortable feeling. It was one of
| the multiple reasons I didn't tried to be a professional in this
| sport.
| _RPM wrote:
| This guy seems like a sociopath
| mannicken wrote:
| >As you might imagine, dating can be a quagmire of liabilities
| and bear traps.
|
| I did not imagine that at all. In fact, I, like I imagine many
| other young men, thought that becoming famous would certainly
| solve their dating problems forever.
|
| That certainty has disappeared. Thanks for sharing this.
|
| >The point is this: you don't need to do anything wrong to get
| death threats, rape threats, etc. You just need a big enough
| audience.
|
| Jesus fucking christ, that is a very believable and plausible
| thought. Even in these 93 comments I'm already seeing people who
| most likely don't know this dude and somehow decided to dislike
| him.
| interlocutor wrote:
| Here's a better list:
|
| - Being under the public eye--all the time--is one of the top
| reasons to not be famous. Famous people must constantly self-
| monitor what they say and do because casual mistakes can trigger
| disproportionate backlash or headlines.
|
| - You lose the ability to have genuine, equal interactions--
| people treat you differently, with deference or expectation,
| rather than as a peer.
|
| - Privacy disappears as curious strangers can easily discover
| where you live, details about your family, and how much wealth
| you have--information you'd normally share only with people you
| trust.
|
| - Strangers form opinions about you before ever meeting you,
| based on whatever fragments of your public persona they've
| encountered.
|
| - A public persona can become a cage, limiting your freedom to
| change, experiment, or reinvent yourself.
| emil-lp wrote:
| I could have asked ChatGPT myself.
| nephihaha wrote:
| Johns Hopkins is a loaded university with global backers. It
| doesn't need much more promotion.
|
| On the other hand there is probably some obscure college that
| does worthwhile research and gets little funding.
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