Episode · The Peterman Pod · 2026-09-28
Books mentioned on Amazon VP: Questions On Corporate Politics But They Get Increasingly Darker | Ethan Evans
In this episode, I asked Ethan Evans (ex-Amazon VP) questions about common situations in corporate politics but they get increasingly darker. • My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.
Ethan Evans recommended Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and others, Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute, and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and others, and discussed Moneyball by Michael Lewis.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Never Split the Difference
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz is a bestselling negotiation guide written by a former international hostage negotiator that offers counterintuitive strategies for high-stakes conversations.
Recommended“I would recommend people read the book uh Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss on negotiation because it's all about the psychology of how to get other people into your framing.”
Where to get it
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Leadership and Self-Deception
Recommended“So, my all-time favorite book on this has uh is called Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute. It's a book that explains uh how we sometimes treat other people as objects without meaning to.”
Where to get it
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The 48 Laws of Power
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers is a strategic manual that examines historical power dynamics, influence, and survival.
Recommended“Um, the third book, even though I hate to recommend it for all your interest in dark side, is that 48 laws of power, it's a very thorough catalog of the dark ways people think and manipulative tricks.”
Where to get it
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Moneyball
Moneyball by Michael Lewis is a groundbreaking book that examines the implementation of mathematical models and analytics in professional sports, specifically focusing on the Oakland A's.
Discussed“So I'm going to use a baseball analogy from the book Moneyball. You can either bat for like on base percentage and I want to swing to get a safe trip to first base and that's actually easier than trying to hit a home run, but if what you want is the home run, you got to swing hard and”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (1) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“That's the Cal Newport so good they can't ignore you path. But like, what's going on in my mind is how can we crossrain someone on what Robert knows so that we're not in this situation?”