The Founder Bookshelf
Books founders recommend to each other. Browse by topic or by where you are as you grow, mark what you've read, and add what's next.
8 books on Negotiation & Influence for timeless
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Negotiate with tactical empathy instead of splitting the difference.
Chris Voss draws on his career as an FBI hostage negotiator to teach a practical, emotion-aware approach to negotiation. He introduces techniques like tactical...
2 founders recommend Get the book ↗
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Bad meetings are not boring by accident, and they are fixable.
Through a business fable, Lencioni diagnoses why most meetings are tedious and ineffective and proposes a cure. He argues that meetings lack drama and contextual...
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Self-awareness and empathy can matter more than raw intellect.
Goleman synthesizes brain and behavioral research to argue that emotional competencies, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill, predict...
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Use economics and psychology to negotiate smarter in business and life.
Neale and Lys blend behavioral economics and psychology to show how rational analysis and human biases both shape negotiation outcomes. They explain how to assess the...
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Turn confrontation into cooperation, even with difficult people.
William Ury picks up where Getting to Yes leaves off, focusing on how to negotiate with people who refuse to cooperate. He lays out a breakthrough strategy of five...
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Negotiate on the merits by focusing on interests, not positions.
Fisher and Ury introduce principled negotiation, a method developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project. They urge negotiators to separate people from the problem,...
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Cut the noise and make every word earn attention.
The Axios founders teach a method for communicating in an age of overwhelming information overload. Smart Brevity favors a strong, direct first sentence, why it...
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Build effectiveness on principles and habits, not quick tricks.
Covey lays out seven habits that move a person from dependence to independence to interdependence, grounded in a character ethic rather than personality tactics. They...
Questions, answered
What books do founders recommend?
Founders on the eChai network recommend titles like Never Split the Difference, Death by Meeting, and Emotional Intelligence. The bookshelf ranks books by how many founders have read them.
Where can I find a startup reading list?
The eChai founder bookshelf is a curated, founder-recommended reading list you can browse by topic (fundraising, product, hiring) and by stage.
How is the bookshelf ordered?
By recommendation: the more founders mark a book read, the higher it ranks. You can also sort by newest or A to Z.
