Latest Posts
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Bluffing
🎭 Almost everyone rejects bluffing. Until it becomes useful. When the subject comes up, Benjamin Franklin grows unusually quiet. Augustus becomes attentive. Niccolò Machiavelli looks thoroughly amused. Maimonides, on the other hand, looks as though he already knows exactly how the discussion will unfold. “People deceive all the time,” Machiavelli says. “In business. In politics.…
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Red lines
🚧 The most dangerous negotiations don’t end in failure. They end in agreement. And are regretted later. Thomas More has said remarkably little all evening. Even by his standards, that’s unusual. Suddenly, he speaks. “May I ask a question?” Socrates smiles. “How do you know when you’ve gone too far?” Niccolò Machiavelli answers immediately. “When…
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Timing
⌛ The right proposal at the wrong time is still the wrong proposal. Sun Tzu considers that self-evident. The others around the table, apparently, do not. For what feels like an eternity, they have been debating strategy and power. Interests and relationships. Sun Tzu listens. Then he asks a question. “Why do people spend so…