| HN Mirror

Your quick impression based on your cursory Google search is likely very reasonable. But I think it's important to note that this (unintentionally) does a huge disservice to the person Tim has grown into since writing the Four Hour Work Week.

Apart from being an incredibly good, humble and thoughtful interviewer, as others have said, I would also encourage anyone unfamiliar with his more recent work to check out his output in the areas of depression, suicide, childhood abuse, psychedelics research, not to mention his later books and countless fascinating podcast interviews with some incredible people.

Whatever you may think of the 4HWW and the almost cult-like following that it inspired, I think that Tim Ferris is a bit of a force for good at this point in time, and quite unique in his ability to tackle any subject head on - even the hardest and most personal ones.

He has a vast audience, and his writings about his own deep personal struggles are incredibly valuable, and I'm sure will have done a lot of good for people in similar positions. This sort of material is hugely important, coming from someone with such a broad reach.

As an aside, I pre-ordered 4HWW prior to it's launch and did find it a very inspiring read as a 20-something wannabe entrepreneur. Everyone gets something different from that book, but I had read The E-myth prior to it, and saw a lot of it as reenforcement of the idea of trying to free up your time to work "on your business" and not "in your business". In that sense, I saw a lot of value in it. But I also understand the flip-side "outsource everything and go live on a beach" view of the book...

It's worth noting that he didn't do the beach thing himself though. He extracted himself quickly out of his day-to-day grind and freed up his time to spend on things that he was interested in, and work hard in high-leverage areas that he wanted to contribute to, on his terms.