Seth Godin: Tribes - book review

Seth Godin is one of the most popular bloggers and business writers in the world, so I wanted to check what the hype is about. Oh boy, where do I start?

Such a banal and naive book. Felt like I was in kindergarten being lectured on the alphabet or something.

“Change good, status quo bad”
“heretics and rebels good, managers bad”
“leaders are everything, all hail leaders”
“wake up sheeple, 9 to 5 bad”
“Passion passion passion. We need more passion.”
“Ideas are everything. You can do it blablabla”

Holy fuck man. I mean I get it, it’s a motivational book marketed for entrepreneurs and “heretics” or whatever, but could you have a more nuanced opinion, Seth? What is this black and white thinking? You condemn religion for its dogmatism and then ironically propose the other dogmatic extreme?

Still, there was some piece of advice which was OK (particularly about the changing nature of markets and the need to readjust), but it was so few and far between that you’d have to listen to lots of BS just to get a hint of the good stuff. I wouldn’t even call it a book, there’s no continuity, it’s just a string of short and loosely-related ideas with pretentious titles that say something vague and motivational, but which ultimately say nothing of substance. Some advice is just bad too, very elitist and one-sided.

I give it 1.5 stars out of 5, which is still generous. I found some value in it, but it’s very little. This book is mostly a waste of time. Maybe I’ll give his other books a chance sometime, just not anytime soon, that’s for sure.

Rating: 1.5/5