TLDR: Beware of “data intimidation” in biz books where authors claim insights from “hundreds/thousands/millions” of interviews/studies; it’s often a sign of weak arguments. Upgrade your skepticism.
I remain a fan of business literature. The ‘will never go away’ problem as a reader is being able to filter the signal from the noise when choosing what to read. Separating the good books and authors from the pretenders is hard. Much of business literature is snake oil bullshit.
But after years of exposure to snake oils I now have a decent ‘hack’/heuristic I can share.
If in the introduction chapter of a book the author uses an sentence resembling “….from talking to/interviewing/ analyzing hundreds/thousands/millions of….” immediately get into Bullshit Alert Mode.
I call the tactic “data intimidation“. Data Intimidation is a subtle tell that the author is not so confident of the conclusions and lessons in the book. The book’s author wants to ensure that when (it’s not an IF usually) you encounter grand flimsy claims, dubious conclusions or naïve “lessons” in the book you will suppress the tingling bullshit detector alarm beeping in your head and get cowed by the claims “….from talking to/interviewing/ analyzing hundreds/thousands/millions of….” . Any author can rightfully also claim “After interviewing BILLIONS of flies we conclude Shit tastes Good!”. Data Intimidation exploits the social proof phenomenon. 60% of the time it works everytime.
Readers : Immediately upgrade your skepticism levels when you read any writer try the data intimidation tactic.
Third Eye Observations 