Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

I'll throw in some thoughts about Never split the difference -- there's a lot of useful perspective in that book, and I appreciated it. However, speaking 'technical founderese', the book is solely about a kind of negotiation that almost never occurs in business life: a single iteration game theoretic game. In real life, especially when you're younger than 60 and in business, every negotiation is part of an iterated game -- you are, much more than negotiating any single deal / job offer / contract term, figuring out who you want to work with, making friends and allies and partners along the way. In those terms, most of that book is toxic, or at least sociopathic. That's fine if your only job is to get terrorists to put away their guns. But, it's definitely less fine if you are cutting a deal with someone who you will definitely intersect with multiple times in your life. And that's most people, it turns out. :) Anyway, I think the book is super interesting, but I think technical types or those with a bit of ASD may find the relational approach hurts them more than winning any particular negotiation.

As a technical founder this book on negotiation was highly valuable: "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It". Negotiation is a skill you need as a startup founder that is not necessarily needed for technical work. "Innovators Dilemma" - helps put in perspective acceptable state of early products and good strategies for deploying new innovative products

Maybe not A book, but some books that helped me change my behavior just a little bit. Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five - if you're thinking of having children or have young children already. This book gives some good insight on possible, data-driven ways to raise a happy and smart kid. I currently have a newborn and have altered some ways I behave around her. It also helps to think about how you were raised, and if that impacted the way you are. The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness - if you're into meditation, I think this is the book to get. I started out with Headspace and this book takes it to the next level. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life - This was an entertaining book on how Scott Adams failed and succeeded. He gives some practical tips on what he did to get to where he is. Of course, there is survivorship bias, but I found some of it helpful. The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism - People aren't born Charismatic. You can practice it.…

Seconded on all counts. Except I'm not planning to recommend the book to my wife for exactly the reason you mentioned! ;)

If you liked "Getting To Yes" you might also enjoy "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It" https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062407805/ that has a somehow different perspective on negotiation