It's odd, because I don't get the same sentiment from reading the two articles you've cited (I haven't read the book).
Essentially, you're upset that the man's predictions have often been wrong. Big whup. Show me one billionaire or nobel prize-winning scientist who hasn't been wrong hundreds of times and I'll show you a liar.
What you should get out of Tom Peters' manic style is, if anything, that you should always question business as usual because shit is going to keep changing. That's it. If you're taking his (or anyone else's) advice as a prescription for how you should think, act, or feel - you're a fool. Advice should merely serve as fodder for thinking, for shocking us out of doing things just because we've always done them that way.
If you form your own opinions, there's no need to go foamy at the mouth when someone else's turn out to be wrong.
Just like models and actors have built entire careers (and industries, in fact) on just standing around and pretending to do things?
Tom Peters does not pretend to be a hacker.
Hackers are not the only sort of people in the world.
Peter Diamandis, for example, is a personal hero of mine and a champion of industry. Does he run unit tests? No. Does he personally build spacecraft? No.
Does that make him any less valuable as a thinker and leader?
Sure it does. He is the living embodiment of "you can just go around talking shit", he's irrational. You can call him an abstract painterly post-modernist thinker, or whatever, just don't go supporting his way of being by putting meaning where there is none, you'd be giving people false hope, so to say. And that really murders, and subsequently mutilates your inner child.
Comments
It's odd, because I don't get the same sentiment from reading the two articles you've cited (I haven't read the book).
Essentially, you're upset that the man's predictions have often been wrong. Big whup. Show me one billionaire or nobel prize-winning scientist who hasn't been wrong hundreds of times and I'll show you a liar.
What you should get out of Tom Peters' manic style is, if anything, that you should always question business as usual because shit is going to keep changing. That's it. If you're taking his (or anyone else's) advice as a prescription for how you should think, act, or feel - you're a fool. Advice should merely serve as fodder for thinking, for shocking us out of doing things just because we've always done them that way.
If you form your own opinions, there's no need to go foamy at the mouth when someone else's turn out to be wrong.
If you form your own opinions, there's no need to go foamy at the mouth when someone else's turn out to be wrong.
Maybe not.
But then again, this is a guy who has built an entire career (and industry, in fact) on exactly the opposite of what most of us practice here at hn.
While we build, he talks.
While we test, he guesses.
While we ask, he tells.
When we're right, we deliver value, When he's right, people just say, "Of course."
When we're wrong, shit stops working. When he's wrong, the PHBs still keep writing him checks.
When the emperor isn't wearing any clothes, someone should say so. Especially here.
Just like models and actors have built entire careers (and industries, in fact) on just standing around and pretending to do things?
Tom Peters does not pretend to be a hacker.
Hackers are not the only sort of people in the world.
Peter Diamandis, for example, is a personal hero of mine and a champion of industry. Does he run unit tests? No. Does he personally build spacecraft? No.
Does that make him any less valuable as a thinker and leader?
Sure it does. He is the living embodiment of "you can just go around talking shit", he's irrational. You can call him an abstract painterly post-modernist thinker, or whatever, just don't go supporting his way of being by putting meaning where there is none, you'd be giving people false hope, so to say. And that really murders, and subsequently mutilates your inner child.
Night.