I read by Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: This is one of the better ‘business’ books I have read thanks to fascinating stories, a counterintuitive message and immediately useful and actionable suggestions. The author, Chris Voss, was an FBI negotiator dealing with negotiations most of us are unlikely to ever encounter: hostage situations. In a very easy and surprisingly captivating read (it is a book on negotiation after all) he instructs on a negotiation strategy that most people don’t usually consider: getting everything you want.
Read MoreI read 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari and reviewed it as part of my ongoing series.
Quick review: I thoroughly enjoyed 21 Lessons, more a collection of meditations than a single tome. The book follows Harari’s two bestsellers, Sapiens and Homo Deus, in which he as a historian and philosopher explores how mankind came to be and where humanity is going. Both great reads in their own right, neither of the previous two books explore the challenges we face in the present age. 21 Lessons is focused squarely on the major themes and current affairs of today and, unlike previous works, Harari intends this book to me more of a conversation with the aim to “stimulate further thinking, and help readers participate in some of the major conversations of [the] time.”
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![Taps’ Notes: AI Superpowers]()
I read AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order by Kai-Fu Lee and reviewed it as part of my ongoing review series.
Quick review: This book by Dr. Kai Fu Lee touched on a lot of themes I have been reading about for some time: artificial intelligence, China’s economic and technological rise and the similarities and differences between the US and China’s startup environment. Dr. Lee is certainly well versed in these subjects considering his background, having developed the world’s first speaker-independent, continuous speech recognition system as his Ph.D. thesis at Carnegie Mellon, where he then went on to become an executive at Apple, SGI, Microsoft and then led Google’s efforts in China. He now, among other things, runs Sinovation Ventures, a venture firm that invests in both the US and Chinese market. Overall I thought the book was quite an informative read (albeit at times came a tad self-serving and effusive in his praise for the Chinese market).
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