Why bother?

I had high hopes, when I picked up this book, as I am a programmer who turned MBA. Unfortunately, these hopes were quickly reduced to near zero.

The book purports to be a guide for IT developers about the world of business. But I can assure you, that most of the rubbish in this book , the author has gleamed by his limited readings of a few business authors. This, combined with a total lack of experience of anything remotely connected to the real business world outside of his own company, explains his strange writings and the image of reading a children's book.

All the traditional IT geek values and misconceptions are adhered to, and only stuff that can be modified to fit into this form is present in this collection of blog entries. For example, he manages to talk about hiring as the only worthy HR issue, and totally forgets what to do with his people when he has hired them (no problem in a small micro-ISV, where the CEO knows everybody by their first name, but a recipe for catastrophe in a larger company). He confuses the current criticism about long-range planning (aka 5-10 year plans) and draws from this, the conclusion that planning is non-desirable… I can only advice him to grow up.

I could go on, but I can assure you that Alice in Wonderland or any book about Pippi Longstocking can give you as relevant and good advice as this book, with a bit of interpretation. Of course, everything he says isn't wrong, but enough of it is, to make this a dangerous reading for any aspiring entrepreneur. It is better to get some basic Marketing/Strategy/HR/Accounting books/courses under your skin (nobody promised you that the business world was easy), and then get out in the world and probably make a better success than Mr. Sink.

In his favor, I can vouch for that he is a pretty enjoyable writer, as long as you don't know the subject he writes about.