The art of selling in a machine learning age

Ask a business person about the metaphor of war and business and pretty quickly you'll get to Sun Tzu's The Art of War an ancient text about terrain, tactics, and frontal assault. A few years ago Art of War was all the rage in business circles and every hotshot executive could quote it. Heck, it is often claimed that Larry Ellison, then CEO Oracle, ran his business with a well thumbed copy of Sun Tzu's tome within easy reach. Regardless, Tzu is off the front burner now and management fads have moved on. Even so, the war metaphor is revived regularly, most recently by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden in Sense and Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously.