Here's the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

Under the right circumstances, I'm not opposed to doing the unorthodox (I might skip the botnet though), and I agree that hustle is important and getting media attention is good. I just wanted to share some of the obvious stuff that jumped to mind immediately.

You saying that reminds me of another resource of interest: Ryan Holiday's book Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator.[1] There's some interesting stuff in there about manipulating the media. You could almost think of it as "black hat PR".

[1]: http://trustmeimlying.com/

For anyone that's equally confused, I highly recommend reading the book "Trust Me, I'm Lying": http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator...

What's happening right now isn't entirely intuitive, so it's understandable to be a bit lost, but what the parent is talking about is a serious, legitimate issue.

One thing to note is that Chris worked with Ryan and has a close relationship with him (Chris actually wrote the trailer for Ryan's book).

And judging from Ryan's usual tactics, Chris wrote this list simply to push Ryan's book, which he cleverly included alongside clear classics like The Lean Startup, In The Plex, and The Innovator's Dilemma.

Edit: Here are some other tactics cleverly used by Chris/Ryan in the post...

1) they mentioned Ryan Holiday in the first couple paragraphs so that the reader would have some familiarity with his name and be even more likely to click through to his book

2) they included Ryan's book early in the list but not as the first, and specifically after at least one book that you probably haven't heard of, but that seems credible

3) they marked The Innovator's Dilemma (arguably the most well known book in the list) as "optional," leading one to perceive that the other books in the list that aren't marked as optional must be even better

Edit: evidence for Chris and Ryan's relationship... https://www.google.com/search?q=chris+johnson+ryan+holiday

Then that gets picked up by intermediary news sites like this *.co.uk domain. Then it gets floated to social media, where it gets popular and noticed by the big guns (NYT, Business Insider, Tech Crunch, etc) and then they just post the same stuff. Then suddenly what was once a rumor becomes true.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_Me,_I%27m_Lying

Then go listen to some Queensryche:

    I used to trust the media
    To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
    But now I've seen the payoffs
    Everywhere I look
    Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?

Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire (by Marc Bowden).

Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator (Ryan Holiday).

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Sam Quinones).

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic (John Temple).

Rosemary's Baby (Ira Levin).

The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922 (Edmond Taylor).

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst (Jeffrey Toobin).

The Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive, Book 1 (Brandon Sanderson). This year was my fourth read. Don't get me started :/

Incidentally, I learned more from his earlier, non-stoicism book, "Trust Me I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator." A prescient book for the current wave of media manipulation.