Exactly.

Wake me up when Gary does a video on unit economics. Or cohort analysis. Or CAC/LTV. Or literally anything to do with business other than the idea that regardless of how unfit you are, how unsuitable your idea is, or how damaging the attempt will be on your personal finances or health, hustle is all you need.

The winds are increasing against him. It's going to be interesting to watch him flip and suddenly preach realism, once he calculates that his adoring masses are going to appreciate that message more on the basis of his "authenticity". (And I wish I could use about fifteen more air-quotes around that word.)

I've never actually heard him say a single shred of useful, practical advice. To me, Gary is the epitome of a snake oil salesperson because I have absolutely no idea why he's so popular.

Is this some sort of twisted Truman Show dystopia where everyone is pretending to worship him and seeing if I am foolish enough to believe them?

Peter Popoff comes to mind . Both make millions pushing lies, and it's legal.

Reminds of what happened with Inbox Zero. Didn't that guy wind up admitting he himself failed at it and it wasn't reasonable anyway? (Or am I getting confused with someone else?)

No, Merlin Mann distanced himself from Inbox Zero once it got picked up by the productivity porn blogger crowd who reduced it to yet another lifehack and lost the spirit of the idea which is that your inbox should not be your todo list because then you lose agency over your own priorities.

Unless you exist in a vacuum, your agency over your own priorities is strictly limited anyway. Sure, you can choose what to work on but a large part of the time, practical considerations are gonna make it pretty damn obvious what the right thing to do is. At that point pretending it's your choice to do that one obviously correct thing is pretty specious.

If you're at one of those rare crossroads where you do have a genuine choice, your inbox is probably going to be close to zero already. I think cause and effect here are getting switched.

> more on the basis of his "authenticity". (And I wish I could use about fifteen more air-quotes around that word.)

He curses a lot, so you know he’s authentic.

He'll probably become a spokesperson for Rent-A-Center before that happens.

It’s worse than that. This kind of pressure leads to ethical lapses and outright corruption.

Hustle is fine. The requirement to give 110% at every moment of every day to succeed means, anyone with two neurons to rub together will just cheat. Not hard to find conspirators when everyone is in the same situation.