Zachari SaltmerThirteen short chapters written for generals, read for centuries by everyone else. It rewards rereading precisely because it refuses to fill in the examples: the application is always yours to supply, which is why it hasn’t aged.
Library
The Art of War
Read · May 2023
Thoughts
The oldest book on the shelf and the least dated. Sun Tzu's core argument, that most battles are won or lost before the fighting starts, maps onto client work, negotiation and launch day with uncomfortable precision. Every business book since is a slide-deck version of this.
Learned
- Every battle is won before it is fought. The preparation is the battle; the fighting is just the paperwork.
- Know the other side and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will not be in peril.
- The supreme art is to win without fighting. The page that answers the objection beats the one that argues with it.