Carol Roth (2)

Carol Roth is 100% sure she knows everything there is to know about starting your own business. And she might be right, or close to it. She's also 100% sure that you are an idiot, and she's here to tell you why.

Some of her soliloquies on the superiority of jobs over entrepreneurialism are downright hilarious. Can anyone tell me where these jobs are that give 5% raises every year forever?

She has a lot of good information about businesses and the realities of starting and running one, but it would have been better presented with fewer of her own biases on display (she takes the first three chapters to lecture the reader on why all other entrepreneurialism books are bad and stupid, and why hers is perfect and unique) and a great deal more respect for the reader. Her assumptions of the motivations of small-business owners are so flawed and insulting as to be laughable: Ms. Roth, the vast majority of people starting businesses are women, and many of them are moms; they aren't doing it because they think it's a sure path to fame and fortune. They're doing it because there are no other jobs out there, or they desperately need work that won't either suck all of their income into daycare fees or suck all of their time into commuting, or because the jobs that are out there are poorly paid, tenuous, temporary, and incredibly extraordinarily risky without ANY potential future upside. You are living in a dreamworld.… (mere)