Why I Stopped Reading Business Books
Most business books should be 40 pages. The market makes them 300.
Most business books are one good idea wrapped in 200 pages of filler.
Jim Collins wrote Built to Last around a simple insight: enduring companies share a core ideology. Good idea. It could fill 40 pages. The book has 342.
Chris Zook and James Allen wrote Repeatability on the premise that simple, repeatable processes beat complex strategies. Also a good idea. Also 288 pages.
This is not malice. It is publishing math. A 40 page paper cannot sell for $29. So editors fill. Repetitive examples, fake frameworks, made up workflows. The core idea survives, buried under weight.
There are exceptions. Bob Fifer's Double Your Profits is short and direct, with something new on every page. I disagree with most of what he proposes. But he respects your time. Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things reads like one honest chapter after another. No filler. Just experience.
These exceptions prove the rule. A good idea does not necessarily need 200 pages.
The same dynamic infects product development. Teams add features because the market expects them. AI chatbots because they are trendy. Dashboard infographics because everyone has them. The real signal gets buried and the user gets bored.
This Substack is my attempt at the opposite. One clear message per article. As many words as needed, then stop. No stuffing. No fake visuals. No padding.
The format serves the message. Not the other way around.
The market will adapt to something great. It always does.