Person
Every book Ethan Smith recommended on podcasts
Key facts
- Ethan Smith has recommended or discussed 6 books on podcasts, as of September 14, 2025.
- Ethan Smith has talked about books on 1 podcast, as of September 14, 2025.
- Those books came up in 2 episodes, as of September 14, 2025.
- The 3 books Ethan Smith has mentioned in the most episodes, as of September 14, 2025: Emotional Intelligence, How to Measure Anything and Influence.
- The latest episode with a book mention from Ethan Smith aired on September 14, 2025.
Updated
Ethan Smith’s most recommended books
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
- How to Measure Anything by Douglas W. Hubbard
- Influence by Robert B. Cialdini
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Ethan Smith is a digital marketing professional and growth expert who has appeared on Lenny's Podcast to share strategies on search engine optimization and artificial intelligence recommendations. Smith has recommended several foundational psychology and data-driven books that he believes are essential for growth work. He highlights Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence for its summary of psychological research that helps improve communication and interpersonal relationships. He also recommends Robert Cialdini's persuasion guide, likely referring to Influence, because it provides tactical frameworks for persuading individuals to sign up for services or make purchases. To further inform growth tests, Smith includes Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow among his top recommendations, noting that behavioral economics offers valuable frameworks for marketers. Additionally, he recommends Douglas W. Hubbard's How to Measure Anything for its innovative approaches to quantifying metrics that are not immediately obvious. Alongside these recommendations, Smith has discussed Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, drawing on its themes of intentional and focused practice to frame his own professional motto. Through these selections, Smith emphasizes the importance of grounding modern marketing and growth strategies in behavioral science, persuasion frameworks, and rigorous measurement.
Books Ethan Smith recommended or discussed
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Emotional Intelligence
Recommended“Number one is emotional intelligence. And uh people talk about the concept of emotional intelligence, but there's actual research in psychology around that. I believe it was published in the '8s, but there's a really good book that summarizes the foundational research around emotional intelligence”
Where to get it
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How to Measure Anything
Recommended“And then the last is how to measure anything. So how to measure anything is about measuring things that are not immediately obvious to to measure. They give this example of they wanted to measure how good an orchestra conductor was”
Where to get it
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Influence
Recommended“which brings me to my second book which is Chelini's persuasion book. uh Robert Galdini does a bunch of books around persuasion, but again there's frameworks for how to persuade somebody to sign up, buy something.”
Where to get it
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Thinking, Fast and Slow
Recommended“And I think especially in growth, there's all kinds of psychology research and behavioral economics research to inform tests. And if you just read thinking fast and slow, persuasion, emotional intelligence, you can basically take those frameworks and apply it to growth”
Where to get it
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Outliers
Discussed“I uh there's a there's the outliers book about 10,000 hours and the themes there are you don't have to be the smartest, you have to be sufficiently smart, number one. Number two is focused practice. So it's not just trying hard, it's doing it in a in an intentional focused way.”
Where to get it
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Product-Led SEO
Discussed“So Eli Schwartz has this book about product LED SEO which is how it should be done and it usually is not done that way. It's usually the product org has their stuff”
Where to get it
Appearances
| Episode | Podcast | Date | Books |
|---|---|---|---|
| The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite) | Lenny's Podcast | 2025-09-14 | 5 |
| The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite) | Lenny's Podcast | 2022-12-01 | 1 |