No programming book gives me $100k of knowledge. Let’s say the knowledge is 10% of the gain and 90% sweat. I need $1m in lifetime value I couldn’t have
got otherwise. If it has that sort
of
value you build a business around that tech! See OpenAI for an example!
Yes, the knowledge in a book does not automatically bring value. A book in itself is worth as much as the warmth it can give when you throw it in a fire.
But IMO that's a stupid way to view books in general. You would have to contend that ALL books are worth nothing, because you have to expend effort to read it or try to actually make use of the knowledge in it.
So how I define value of a book? From the economics, this would be the opportunity cost which is the next best thing you could do. If you have better use of your time than reading any book then yes, books are worthless to you as long as you can do better things with your time.
For me, I found that reading books brings immense value to me by either directly bringing actionable knowledge or by causing me to think in new ways. Yes, these are my thoughts, but I argue I would not have them if I kept my brain just doing the same thing every day.
I attribute many hundreds of thousands of dollars of my income to ideas in books that I red and some of these books more than others. I am not listing these books here because I also believe that it is not about these books. It is about me getting value from the ideas that I would not know otherwise.
