I'm skeptical of overly empirical arguments. It's a lot easier to fool someone by citing some unreproducible study or misinterpreted statistic. Tell me a story and I understand it's one story but it might have some kind of meaning or resonance.
The best thing I learn from business book and bios is that it can be done. The people are often very human and flawed. Half of it is just believing you can do it and working hard.
If you look at empirical data you quickly come across efficient market and no free lunch. But it's important to note you are not a statistic and what you do determines your fate. Or at least that's the most productive way to go through life
This kind of underscores the author's point, though. These books in question give the impression that they supply concrete business advice, but much of it is highly non-transferrable. Or at least requires significant discipline to separate the concrete from the self-aggrandization, survivor bias, confirmation bias, etc. They don't get at the heart of the technical, social and political challenges facing an average Joe starting a company. Sure, their journey may inspire you to get moving, but so could Frodos. This doesn't make them a bad book, but they are not scholarly. Realistically, since Frodos story based on a much broader familiarity with human history, it may be significantly more cross-applicable despite being set in fantasy world.
My comment was probably something similar. Are there some general principles? Sure. And I'm glad that Harvard Business School professors, consultants, and successful execs (or their ghostwriters) can elaborate on them as food for thought especially when backed with some data. But I've also heard/read seemingly super-logical cases for various outcomes that ended up simply not happening.
Quite a few pop-non-fic books, especially business, self-help (tons of overlap in form and technique there), and both business and non-business (these latter usually get adopted by the business-side anyway) “big idea” books, not only cite studies of dubious value, but cite sources that don’t include their claim at all, or contradict it.
The best thing I learn from business book and bios is that it can be done. The people are often very human and flawed. Half of it is just believing you can do it and working hard.
If you look at empirical data you quickly come across efficient market and no free lunch. But it's important to note you are not a statistic and what you do determines your fate. Or at least that's the most productive way to go through life