The basic concept of Guru-ism seems to be triggering a lot of emotional reactions and discussions. Fellow blogger compatriot, Uri Baruchin (and got a billboard push by Guy Kawasaki) and even I myself have touched on it at a point.

Oren Friedman sent me the following with a disclaimer (“I hope it’s not too aggressive for the blog”). Oren is my rational alter-ego. I like looking at certain things from a semi romantic perspective (“If it adds real value a business model shall be found”). Oren is a big believer in the basic sense of the business model. He first counter-analyzes whether there is an actual rational and sustainable story behind the flashes. We agree much more frequently then we disagree though, and one element we definitely share is basic resentment to Gurus and Guruism. We both still keep track of their activities of course…

What is it that keeps us so emotionally charged whenever gurus open their mouths? What is it that makes one a guru? And at the bottom line, how should we treat gurus? Is guruism the Industry’s version of projected relationship we have with our parents?

Anyway, Oren’s piece is as always enlightening and definitely not too aggressive. Here goes:
“For a while now I’ve been meaning to sit down and write a piece on Internet Gurus. You know who they are – the ones with the sexiest blogs, the ones who sit on industry panels, who get interviewed all the time, who sit on boards and who (sometimes) make investment decisions.

The archetypical Guru is someone who struck gold during the .COM (note the DOT) craze, and is now considered one of the “elders”. His (or her) opinions will most of the time be on the bleeding edge, putting down the conventional in favor of “new and exciting” ideas/methods/processes. He’ll have plenty of advice on how you should run your business, build your products and what not. And of course, everything is sugar coated with an icing of cliches. Smart and up to date, but nonetheless cliches. Oddly enough, if you were to actually present them with a business proposition which incorporates their innovative/radical/new ideas, chances are they’d turn you down (as investors).

You also have the “self proclaimed” experts. Typically you’ll see him/her writing columns in a magazine/newspaper; his opinion will be solicited whenever news breaks, etc. He has never actually DONE anything, but he is opinionated, and, well. seems to know a lot about everything. Think of the folks who regularly write @ Wired, PC Mag, etc. This expert kind of reminds me of those folks who peddle seminars/books about how to make the killer stock investment. You can’t help wondering, if they have all the know-how and know the secret of how to pick the right stocks, why are they sharing this with me, and how come they don’t already rule the world as the richest of the richest…

Anyhow, as I was putting my thoughts in order, it suddenly struck me that I could just as easily replace Internet Guru with Consultant, and my commentary would (IMHO) still be valid. That’s when serendipity really kicked in. I pulled out my worn copy of Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics, and revisited his chapter on “What Makes a Perfect Parent?“
When you read this section, simply replace “parenting experts” with “Guru” or “consultants“, “parent” with “entrepreneur” and “children” with “your business“:

My point?

Just because someone struck gold in the ’90s (many Gurus are one-hit-wonders), does not mean they know how to run your business, or are in a position to make any comments about it. Remember that successful enterprises (success defined not by how much money you raised, but by how much money you made), are driven by FACTS and by ANALYSES.

Consider Google (and I’m referring to Google the media/search company, not the Google Talk company) – its business is all about being informed, all about looking at market data, analyzing it, and coming up with better solutions and better business models. Yes, it is (was?) a very sexy company and a sexy story, but the secret for success was kick-ass technology coupled with an extremely diligent corporate culture, focused on results as a function of available facts/data. The same applies to eBay, and most (if not all) of the successful Internet ventures. Turns out that successful enterprises follow established processes and time-proven business strategies. What a surprise.

So don’t flip your business upside down just because a blog recommended it as the “business fad of the day”, don’t throw out everything they taught you at B-school (though a lot of it WAS junk), don’t get caught up in the self-embracing hype (”we’re so good, this is so good, the industry is so good, I mean, so and so said so, right?”). Remember – you, and only you, bear the responsibility for your business. Everyone else have their own agenda to promote.

When it comes down to it, there’s not much you can do with the Guru’s “advice”, other than feel that you’re left out in the cold and everyone else knows better. Just relax, and remember that the Guru would not give you the time of day if YOU were to approach them with the same clichés they are feeding you.

Many people got lucky in the 90’s. Yes, lucky. You can easily figure out who they were. You had the ones who actually did a great job of building sustainable companies (Checkpoint, Comverse, Amdocs, Cisco, Yahoo, eBay, even Amazon (so-so) and many others). Then again you had the ones who got lucky – they capitalized on the hype, they bought low and sold high, but have accumulated no tangible experience related to actually building and running a sustainable business. And when luck ran out, well, we all now how that hype ended…”