Top all-time · #213
Tim Ferriss
Personal blog · tim.blogbusinessproductivity
Tim Ferriss's personal blog at tim.blog covers business and productivity. Since 2017, 209 different Hacker News readers have linked it 262 times, most often “Reasons not to become famous”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Often recommended · 17 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Tim Ferriss's blog mostly for his podcast interviews, which commenters recommend (Naval, Honnold, Gabor Maté), and for a post on why fame is a drag.
- Recommended for · 17 comments
- Podcast interviews called interesting, amazing or worth hearing; fame essays called eye-opening.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The Tim Ferriss Show The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world, with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times. Each episode, I deconstruct world-class performers from eclectic areas (investing, sports, business, art, e
Most-linked posts?
- Reasons not to become famous24 people · 26 mentions · first linked 2020-02-03
- /podcast/5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-12-01
- Has AI already killed self-help nonfiction books?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2026-06-13
- /2017/05/15/fear-setting/4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-06-12
- Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes (2009)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-05-07
- Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide (2015)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-11-28
- Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-03-21
- Stewart Brand3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-03-31
- Patrick Collison (CEO of Stripe) on Tim Ferriss' Podcast3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-12-21
- /2017/06/04/nick-szabo/3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-07-27
What Hacker News says?
I am genuinely baffled how Scott Alexander's post has turned into hundreds and hundreds of comments on cancel culture, as if it was anything near the #1 reason why he'd be in danger if his name was revealed. Being famous is dangerous in every era, doubly so in an era where anybody unhinged basically has access to the same level of information you used to need a private investigator to get. Tim Ferris said it well: "…
Comment linking /2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
on “I Am Deleting the Blog”Submitted Reasons not to become famous as a story · 850 points
HN discussionSo right now I'm 63 hours into a fast, which I just decided to do on a lark. I've been intrigued ever since hearing an interesting podcast on fasting ( https://tim.blog/2017/05/04/smart-drugs-fasting-and-fat-loss... ). At this stage, I have started to find mental things a little harder to do, but honestly its still pretty subtle and is pretty indistinguishable from the normal kinds of self pity I normally have when…
Comment linking /2017/05/04/smart-drugs-fasting-and-fat-loss/
on “Productivity”Submitted Reasons not to become famous (2020) as a story · 154 points
HN discussionThis essay [0] from Tim Ferriss really crystalized for me a lot about why fame is a drag. During my college years, one of my dorm mate’s dads was a famous Hollywood producer. He once said to me, “You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face.” Taking it a step further, we could quote Bill Murray: I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: ‘try being rich first.’ See if that doe…
Comment linking /2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
on “Daft Punk Break Up”Submitted Interview with Vitalik Buterin on ETH2, Scaling Plans, NFTs, etc. as a story · 144 points
HN discussionI thought Tim Ferriss's interview of Honnold was quite an interesting exploration of his thought process. http://tim.blog/2016/05/17/alex-honnold/
Comment linking /2016/05/17/alex-honnold/
on “Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels”Submitted Questions that changed my life (2016) as a story · 97 points
HN discussionThe last time I wrote a mild critique about Tim Ferriss online, someone scoured the internet to reverse engineer my personal identity and sent an e-mail to my personal e-mail account to debate with me. (I have since switched to anonymous handles). I can only imagine what it's like for Tim Ferriss himself. If you're not familiar with Tim Ferriss, there are several reasons why he's more attractive to dangerous followe…
Comment linking /2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/
on “Reasons not to become famous”Submitted Forget new year’s resolutions and conduct a ‘past year review’ instead as a story · 94 points
HN discussionHi, I want you to tell you a litte story about my self and my struggles. We should be about the same age. A year ago, I was going strong, working my job, having side projects and getting things done. I was doing a lot of sports and was on the level of a marathon runner. Then I had an injury. Due to the lack of sport, I fell into depression. I was unable to concentrate on a single thing for even five minutes and had…
Comment linking /lifestyle-costing/
on “Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?”Submitted The art of long-term world travel as a story · 53 points
HN discussionHey, of course this didn't come out of nowhere. After lots of failures on my own ambitions right after college, I eventually caved in (completely broke) and started a job in tech support to pay the bills. It was only then — where I got my problems and structure from an external source — that I started really excelling. I eventually automated my job away, worked my way up through engineering into a Lead Architect pos…
Comment linking /2013/11/03/productivity-hacks/
on “Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?”Submitted I’m Stopping the Fan-Supported Podcast Experiment as a story · 23 points
HN discussionMy favorite is Naval’s talk at Tim Ferriss: https://tim.blog/2020/10/14/naval/amp/
Comment linking /2020/10/14/naval/amp/
on “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2020?”Submitted Reasons Not to Become Famous as a story · 19 points
HN discussionReally enjoyed listening to this recent interview with Eric Schmidt. I’d never heard of Bill Campbell before, seems like he was a huge influence around Silicon Valley. https://tim.blog/guest/eric-schmidt/
Comment linking /guest/eric-schmidt/
on “Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors”Submitted Ten Commandments of Startup Success with Reid Hoffman as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThis story highlights the value of putting yourself in the mindset and perspective of the "other" that you disagree with, to see things their way, for your own benefit. The entire Tim Ferris podcast episode (from which the quoted story was told - https://tim.blog/2021/09/09/sheila-heen/ ) is good, and brought to mind an EconTalk podcast episode that explores how seeing and doing things in the interest of others is m…
Comment linking /2021/09/09/sheila-heen/
on “Red Light Green Light”Submitted The Harajuku Moment as a story · 14 points
HN discussionCaterina Fake talked about this on Tim Ferris' podcast [1] and Gimlet's "Without Fail" together right, they applied for a government start-up grant when building the MMO and didn't get it. However they had accidentally chosen to automatically resubmit the application a year later. Around the time the MMO failed, they received the grant from the second application. They had something vaguely similar to photo-sharing…
Comment linking /2019/02/21/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-caterina-fake-360/
on “Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation”Submitted Naval Ravikant on Happiness, Anxiety, Crypto Stablecoins, and Crypto Strategy as a story · 14 points
HN discussion> There's just today, and whether you're going to > make things better by one day's worth. So true. The guest post on Ferriss's blog on this is quite good -- https://tim.blog/2009/07/28/the-big-question-are-you-better-...
Comment linking /2009/07/28/the-big-question-are-you-better-than-yesterday/
on “Procrastination is driven by our desire to avoid difficult emotions, says expert”Submitted Reasons Not to Become Famous (Or “A Few Lessons Learned Since 2007”) as a story · 12 points
HN discussionActually this is correct but something that supports this point is the: Cosmic insignificance therapy - https://tim.blog/2021/12/15/the-liberation-of-cosmic-insigni... In the end, everything is pointless and it can be either depressing or liberating. So all you described - just do the things that you feel are enjoyable or meaningful - it doesn't have to be a startup, it can be as much as caring for elderly or even r…
Comment linking /2021/12/15/the-liberation-of-cosmic-insignificance-therapy/
on “I thought I’d have accomplished a lot more today and also before I was 35 (2020)”Submitted Reasons Not to Become Famous as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI'm personally not very well-known, but I work for someone who is, and on a project that gets quite a lot of attention because of it. It's surprisingly common that people show up with extraordinary and incoherent stories. Given the author's name and email address are plastered all over, it is not surprising that such people would find him too. An article was shared here a while ago that went into that as well: https…
Comment linking /2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
on ““I will slaughter you””Submitted Scientific Speed Reading: How to Read 300% Faster in 20 Minutes (2009) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionIf you're looking for ways to be charitable, I found this (and this similar Tim Ferris post[0]) to be eye-opening view into the range of noise that people with large social wakes deal with. It's a small slice of empathy that I (and possibly others) would have lacked otherwise that makes me more understanding in interactions with folks like OSS maintainers, corporate governance, etc. I agree, there was no need to inc…
Comment linking /2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/
on ““I will slaughter you””Submitted Has AI already killed self-help nonfiction books? as a story · 4 points
HN discussion
