Give and Take is a summary of social science findings around the perhaps-unexpected success of “givers” in a world which seems to reward “taker” behavior. In other words, this book investigates the various ways in which people who behave collaboratively at work actually do better in the long run than people who behave competitively. Primarily, it seems to be the case that givers do so by building their networks and then realizing the value of those networks over time; and in some cases, givers also do so by creating enough value for their organizations that they accrue value because of the rising-tide-lifts-all-boats phenomenon.

I think when I first heard of this book it sounded striking, perhaps even a little revolutionary - somewhat similar to the promise of Super-Cooperators. But instead I found it to be a relatively dry account of fairly conventional behavior among mid-career professionals in the more modern industries. These sort of behaviors - mentoring, networking, strategic giving - are more-or-less standard practice for anyone who’s even a moderately successful software engineer or other creative professional. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with them, or that this book doesn’t do a service by studying the behavior with a measure of rigor - only that it has a quality of stating the obvious to a large degree.

There is much to be said about exactly how one should go about being an effective “giver”, and the book does skirt around that topic a little bit - particularly with regard to the five-minute favor rule. But it’s not a how-to manual by any means.

I think this book is a useful investigation of established collaborative practices in the creative professions. I’m not sure it provides a whole lot of value to anyone who has seen a fair amount of those practices up close, but it does have its interesting moments.