Episode 26: Barry Nalebuff on Negotiation and Strategic Investing

Promising ideas never really leave you. A visit to a tea auction in India was the missing ingredient Barry Nalebuff needed to create Honest Tea with his former student, Seth Goldman, five years after connecting over disdain for excessively sweet beverages.

This week’s guest is renowned Yale School of Management professor, serial entrepreneur, and prolific writer Barry Nalebuff. Following the immense success of Honest Tea, Barry co-founded Kombrewcha and Real Made Foods. His most recent book, Split the Pie: A Radical New Way to Negotiate, was released in March.

In this episode, Barry discusses his logical-“Spockian”-approach to negotiation and the key questions to pursuing a win-win result and aligning incentives. He shares insight into the craft of branding and his journey with Honest Tea and subsequent projects.

Later in the episode, Barry and Eric dive into investing with leverage, assessing risk, and maximizing your stock market exposure across time. They consider the nature of dividends on cultural assets and NFTs. Listen in to learn more about Barry’s journey from the classroom to the NBA to his adventures in competitive table tennis.

• (2:01) “Cereal” entrepreneur
• (6:36) Following logic
• (7:55) Partnership with Seth Goldman
• (9:50) Honest Tea
• (13:00) Teaching game theory and negotiation
• (16:43) Split the Pie
• (21:38) Rule #1 of negotiation
• (23:27) Creating the pie
• (27:18) Mission in a Bottle
• (32:46) Lifecycle investing
• (39:18) Diversification across asset classes
• (43:54) NFTs
• (47:35) Working with the NBA
• (51:15) Access to alternative assets

Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor at Yale School of Management and co-founder of Honest Tea, Kombrewcha, and Real Made Foods. He has taught negotiation, innovation, strategy, and game theory for 30 years and has co-authored several books-including Thinking Strategically, Co-opetition, and his most recent publication, Split the Pie. Barry is a graduate of MIT and Oxford University, and he serves as director on the board for AGP Group.