[drzaiusapelord]

Its not bad. I think Carnegie, like many men of his generation, had an overly rosy look of society and the book buys pretty deeply into middle-class Christain-Judeo ethics. It definitely fits in more with the win-win idea of striking a deal than the zero-sum scorched earth tactics that because popular later and emphasises relationships, perhaps to the point where a modern person would find it to be butt-kissing.

I'm not exactly sure what the GP meant, but my take is that if you find the book to be revealing it probably means you were buying into middle-class Christian-Judeo ethics anyway, or are good at faking them. If both parties believe in a win-win solution, then they'll probably find it. So its self-fulfilling in a way. The problem is that is highly competitive environments win-win negotiation is a non-starter and these kind of strategies won't work.

Its something of a relic in my opinion. Maybe it made sense in terms of a door-to-door salesmen like Carnegie was, but I can't imagine it being particularly useful today, especially for those looking to run a tech startup. I'd look at books like "Getting to Yes" or various startup specific books instead as a better use of your time.

[zeveb]

I gotta ask, what's wrong with Judæo-Christian ethics and win-win solutions? What's wrong with getting along, with doing well by doing good, with honestly trying to be pleasant to others? Would that be the end of the world?

[drzaiusapelord]

Nothing but if the guy you're negotiating with isn't subscribing to your ethics, then you're at a disadvantage.

[derefr]

To go further: I don't really see a point to any negotiation that isn't a positive-sum game. And not for ethical reasons! To me, it doesn't matter if I or someone else gets more of a pie, because it's still just one pie and talking won't make more of it, so any time spent negotiating has opportunity costs that lower the aggregate ROI of our combined pie-slices. Negotiation spends pie. If the goal is to get the most pie, why waste time negotiating that you could be spending making pie less scarce?