I know nothing about negotiation aside from a couple of classes I took early in my career -- probably the best instruction I received early on aside from deeply

I know nothing about negotiation aside from a couple of classes I took early in my career -- probably the best instruction I received early on aside from deeply-technical stuff. Doubled my billing rate immediately. Having said that, it's important to distinguish these kinds of negotiation porn stories with real-world negotiations. Especially for tech teams. Negotiation exists so that in a world of low-trust we can all meet some of our goals by working together in a careful manner. It's a kind of careful "dance" where a back-and-forth between the parties slowly allows information to move back-and-forth so that goals can be met. It's the spot between sharing nothing and sharing everything. A lot of management theory, like Agile, depends on some kind of weird total trust environment that's never, ever existed. That means negotiation has to happen. (If negotiation happens with your kids when you're talking about where to go for dinner, it happens in tech teams, trust me.) Yes, in the end you'll end up with a bit of remaining information asymmetry that can be spun to make it like one party got away with a lot and took advantage over the other one. But the real goal is also mentioned in the essay: everybody comes back to the table again and negotiation happens again on the next deal. Nobody wants to sit down with Stalin again. And thankfully, nobody has to. Real-world negotiation is much more about building trust and deep friendships -- sometimes using games and tactics which can appear to be slimy -- than it is trying to bulldoze somebody. Negotiation has gotten a bad name for many of us tech folks. It really shouldn't be that way. It's an important thing to learn and practice for everybody.