Sivers went from an independent music maker and producer to a multimillionaire on-line business owner because he wanted to sell some CD’s and do some friends some favors. This book tells his intensely personal story of success, and uses it as a micro-chasm for his business advice. The advice itself is succinct, simple, and focused on personal happiness married with professional selflessness, an ideology that purposefully flies in the face of growth-focused big business tactics.
I disagreed with a lot of the parts of this book, but that doesn’t lessen the lessons within. Sivers specifically writes that his advice is wholly biased towards his own story, so his tales of pissing off big businesses on principle might not appeal to me, but it makes sense in his context. Sivers’ message is understandable through any lens of personal bias: do what makes you happy and what’s good for the people you want to serve.