Ryan DeissCo-Founder & CEO, The Scalable Company

Hot take: your favorite business book tells me more about you than your résumé ever could.

23 Dec 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:53

A short satirical YouTube monologue by Ryan Deiss that pokes fun at people by diagnosing their personality/leadership style from their favorite business books. The speaker assigns quick star ratings and makes jokey observations — e.g., praising Drucker and An Effective Executive, mocking leaders who describe startups as the "Uber 4," and ridiculing books "updated for the crypto era." The piece critiques business-book culture, leadership trust exercises, and performative pep-talk management.

Chapters

Here's what your favorite business book says about you. Oh yeah, if this is a favorite, you've probably made your leadership team sit through at least one awkward trust building exercise involving blindfolds and awkward conversations in ropes courses. The good news? You have a vocabulary for why your team is broken. The bad news? Your team still hates each other. 3.9 out of 5 stars Drucker is the Goat An Effective Executive is a classic. It reads a bit like your grandpa lecturing you, but still it's timeless wisdom. 4.5 out of 5 stars this book is the reason that everybody describes their startup as the Uber 4 and for that reason it gets 3.1 out of 5 stars. It's useful, but it's also not super relevant unless you're raising capital, which you probably should not be doing. I'm going to be honest, I have not read this book, but if it's your favorite book, then you're probably more into pep talks than actual business advice. 2.5 out of 5 stars because the Amazon description said it's been updated and refreshed for the crypto era, no real business books needs to do that.