Chris Voss is the narrator and coauthor of Never Split the Difference. The experiences and lessons gleaned from his career as a hostage negotiator comprise the book’s content. After working on New York City’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, Voss underwent training to become a hostage negotiator in 1992. From 2003 to 2007, he was the chief international hostage and kidnapping negotiator at the FBI. During this time, he led negotiations in multiple high-profile cases around the world. In 2008 he left the FBI to found a negotiation consulting firm, The Black Swan Group. He also began teaching and lecturing at several universities.

Voss draws from each phase of his career to provide illustrative anecdotes for the principles he practices. Those cases include his success stories as well as times that he fell short and learned valuable lessons as a result. The stories from his own life reveal him as a passionate, eager-to-learn individual. When he explains the three styles of negotiation, Voss places himself in the assertive category. Since the book is written in first person, stylistic choices also impact readers’ perception of Voss; the casual but emphatic