His advice, in particular, that you should never give up equity seems the sort that he succeeded in spite of.
It's just a crap shoot, that's all.
Check out J Paul Getty's How To Be Rich, which is both about how to attain wealth and what to do once you succeed. Pretty awesome really.
Somebody should do a meta-book on success/self-help literature. I guess it started with "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill? I dunno, but there's a boatload of it out there.
His advice, in particular, that you should never give up equity seems the sort that he succeeded in spite of.