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Comment by tomh- | Hacker News Reader

It's important to realize that this "Rework" book is about the stuff that worked for 37signals and might work for you if you have a similar business. The review points out that this is not always the case from a management perspective and it's not always applicable to other business'.

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From the inside flap - "REWORK shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition."

Note that the claim is not 'Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in a business that is similar to 37 signals. Maybe'.

It depends. Maybe. Sometimes. Your milage may vary. Reasonable people understand these apply in most (but not all!) situations.

No doubt. But what the what the OP is trying to do is weasel away from a critique of the book by saying 'Well, it's really mostly about 37 signals. If you don't like it/doesn't work for you, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man'. I imagine you wrote the book with the notion that it is broadly (not universally) applicable, just like most books in the genre. And it's perfectly sensible to review it in those terms, just like this and all other reviews I've seen so far have.

I do think a lot of our ideas can apply to a very broad spectrum of businesses.

I've personally heard from thousands of business owners in just about every industry who've told me many of the ideas we espouse work beautifully for them in their businesses.

But, no of course I don't believe any idea applies to everyone.

Thousands? That's one for every working day ten years in a row.

No need to exaggerate to make your point.

Thousands? That's one for every working day ten years in a row.

Or three days worth of email

Jason, maybe you should just link to this page every time this same kind of issue pops up and save yourself some time: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch01_Caveats_disclaimers_an...

The fact that an italian cooking book tells you that after you read it "you'll be able to cook amazing meals" doesn't mean you'll be able to cook amazing "thai" meals... It also doesn't mean that if you can mix things up and come up with food that you like better, it isn't good food.

Now I'm hungry and still completely confused about the point you are making.

I think the inner flap pretty much every business book I've ever read has said something similar.

I'm pretty sure the copy writers of business book promotional material have some sort of mad lib system for writing that tripe.

This book will _______ by showing you how ______ changed their business by _______ . All answers to your problems inside!

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