[toufiqbarhamov]

One view is that paying close attention to someone, praising their acumen and acting like they know the secrets to the universe, is essentially a kind of sycophantic behavior. Like most such behavior the goal isn’t emulation of behavior to emulate result, but to gain favor. Powerful, successful people like to build mythologies, and have a habit of rewarding people who flatter that myth, and punishing those who don’t. So when a lot of people stand in awe of someone who holds the purse strings to their dreams, it pays to really consider their motives.

For the average person buying a “How I Made My First Billion” book, it’s just that they’re unaware of anything, but the myth. Since the myth is being propagated by very smart and successful people, it’s that much more convincing to them. In turn the myth makes getting investment and ‘airtime’ easier, which feeds back into success. The mistake people make is thinking that Fake It Till You Make It ends at success, truthfully it only ramps up then.

Edit: This isn’t to say that the likes of Altman, Gates and others are not genuinely intelligent and capable, just that the magnitude of their success isn’t something you can reliably copy, or that beyond their core competence, they have any special insight. Yet the myth tends to extend far beyond that, and I think unjustifiably, although understandably so.