Despite some of the glowing reviews, this book is not as revelatory as is made out. It does serve as a basic introduction to the field of motivation, but anyone who is at least somewhat acquainted neurobiology will find it on the side of ho hum. I think a far better listen is anything by Dr. V. S. Ramachandran who is both more insightful and interesting. Also, though not in a neuroscience context but also about motivation, is the now-old-standard: Freakonomics.
But lest you still want to listen to the book: here it is in summary: the are two basic motivations: sex and prestige. Further broken down: sexual motivation is the desire to attract a mate to reproduce, and prestige is the desire to gather allies. That’s it.
Perhaps the main reason I found the book as lackluster is because of its reliance on the field of evolutionary psychology. There is a reason psychology is called the “pseudo-science.” After all, more than half of all psych research is nonreproducible. But evolutionary psychology is even worse. There is nothing about it, in scientific terms, that is “falsifiable.” Therefore, it is not science. It is opinion. Perhaps the opinion is correct but until opinion can be tested it is not worth a whole lot.