What is the worst advice you received that you followed anyway?
Recorded Tobias Lütke said elsewhere, not written here
So I really tried everything, including, you know, just how to build the team in such a way that I delegate everything, and I have my different business lines, and arrange things. This is sort of after the IPO, and I realized I have to be a very “serious” public company CEO. And so it almost killed the company, honestly.

David Senra, David Senra's podcast, David Senra (published episode transcript), 2026 source ↗

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Mario Molina Atmospheric chemist; Nobel laureate in Chemistry, 1995
I did. As a kid, I liked music. I still like it a lot of course. I used to play the violin. I did contemplate, well, maybe that’s an option. I could become a musician. Somehow my parents got some advice that unless I was willing to spend eight or 10 hours a day just playing the violin that I should just give it up. To me, that was very bad advice because you could of course, get very involved in music without being a musician. Fortunately, even though I gave up eventually playing the violin myself, I never gave up my fondness for music. But if I had a chance again, I would not give it up. I would just do it as a hobby. I think that was just because I did not get the correct advice.
Recorded Adam Smith, Nobel Prize Talks, recorded April 2014; re-released as Nobel Prize Conversations, Nobel Prize Outreach, 11 April 2014 source ↗
Bozoma Saint John Marketing executive; former chief marketing officer of Netflix
But it was really – it came across sinister. And for me, I really did listen to it. I accepted it. I tried to implement that. The reason why I say it’s the worst advice I ever received was that it was damaging to me because she was totally wrong. ... And so, when somebody who is successful tells you to do something, you try to do it, even when it damages you.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 4 February 2018 source ↗
Soman Chainani Novelist and screenwriter; author of The School for Good and Evil
This professor was obviously on the jury, and I wanted to stay the faculty’s blessed son, and so I trusted external validation at this point in my life more than my own creative compass. So, like a lemming, I followed his advice. I spent the whole night undoing eight months’ work and recutting the film. And the next day, I presented this hacked up Frankenstein to the faculty, who absolutely demolished it.
Recorded Tim Ferriss, The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, 6 February 2018 source ↗

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Question What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise? Craft & work
So, look, I read lots of books, lots of them, you know, especially when I went from programmer to a business, realizing I have to just learn business really quick. I got really dismayed with the quality of business books pretty quickly, because frankly, I think the business books are largely written by the people who have time, who are not the people who actually build companies, frankly.
Recorded David Senra, David Senra's podcast, David Senra (published episode transcript), 2026 source ↗

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