[Balarny]

Even outside of the whole wider decades-long "Jobs: Sinner or Saint" discussion, it's interesting to see from this one incident just what kind of things don't even register as questionable in certain "dog eat dog" business circles. Both the OP and the replies not only pay little attention to the fact Jobs called OP a liar in a very aggressive way simply for using the almost intrinsically abstract English language in a subjective way ("I know" vs "I think"), they seem to almost think Jobs should be thanked for giving OP a character building experience. He could even have been blunt without sugar coating it: "I admire your conviction, but you won't ["I don't think you will"? lol] be able to make those targets and so we can't go ahead. Best of luck." To then go on to steal the idea anyway? That's just Grade A Hole.

I understand large companies dealing with large amounts of money need to be ruthless, but I've always hated this kind of attitude (in general, not just Jobs)

edit: to be clear I'm not saying OP didn't pull the figures out of his arse, just that it quite clearly wasn't an attempt to be deceptive based on the language he used around it

[martyvis]

Actually, OP says here his intent was to deceive - and Jobs picked up on it. https://twitter.com/apartovi/status/1447324896904638467?t=ou...

[mattbee]

I took from this that the OP assumed Jobs wouldn't be too price-sensitive. And that he would be happy to pay a small premium to get the feature into iTunes faster. And that a little - err - negotiating fudge in the opening meeting might fly under the radar.

Jobs would have had an estimate of what it would take to copy the feature - way less than $50m, just not quite as quickly.

It surely wouldn't have made a lot of difference (to Apple) if Jobs had laughed off the bluster, and negotiated back down to pretty much any number they liked, maybe even less than $50m.

But the asshole vibe from Jobs comes from the fact that he clearly didn't value the feature that much. It was more valuable to wait for his own team to build it slower, and send the CEO away with a flea in their ear pour encourager les autres. So I'm sure that story got heard by plenty of other potential Apple acquisitions, and saved Apple a lot of money down the line.

[mariodiana]

I actually think what happened is that Jobs was on his way out of the room, having heard enough and happy to let his subordinates work out any possible deal, and took umbrage that a "small fry" would detain him with trying to fix a ballpark figure on the spot.

Moral evaluation of his action I leave as an exercise for the reader.

[simonh]

>But the asshole vibe from Jobs comes from the fact that he clearly didn't value the feature that much.

Why is not valuing the feature that much an asshole move?

I'm sure you'll figure out a way somehow. It's amazing how far people will bend themselves out of shape over Steve Jobs.

[mattbee]

No strong feelings on Jobs, but quite a few people here commenting it was sharp practice, and I understand why.

Of course it's reasonable for anyone in business to say "you're trying to bullshit me, so I'm not doing business with you". The OP agrees, end of story.

But - Jobs might have batted away OP's amateur bravado with grace, and still bought his company for any price he wanted (probably even less than it would have cost Apple to build!). Or he could have passed them over to a subordinate be let down.

Instead Jobs personally wanted to be known for cruel honesty, and for ordering a clone of a startup that he'd changed his mind about buying. I genuinely don't know whether he succeeded because or in spite of that kind of conduct.

[silexia]

Building the feature probably took a few engineers a couple of months. That's a lot cheaper than 50 million dollars.

[ricardobeat]

Why would he do business with someone who had just lost his trust? You wouldn’t want to acqui-hire that team.

[solarkraft]

I think the commenter means that Jobs behaved how he did because he didn't intend to do business with them on their terms.

[smnrchrds]

It still doesn't make the tantrum, humiliation, or insults OK. The CEO didn't do anything 90% of us don't do during salary negotiations. Imagine if anytime you said you know the market price is X for your skills without having another offer in your hand or adding lots of disclaimers like "I think maybe I might be able to find an offer that is kinda like ...", you would be shouted at, belittled, insulted.

[jjoonathan]

Yes, and if Steve Jobs whim had blown the other way and allowed the price framing, this guy would be hailed by the same crowd as a negotiation genius -- even though both scenarios were actually just high-stakes coinflips.

[hammock]

People are so soft. OP was a bad negotiator and he's acknowledging it. That's what this comes down to. Jobs didn't want to waste his own time by extending the meeting further and did OP a favor by being transparent at all.

Would you rather Jobs had NOT been transparent, and obscured his his thoughts behind niceties? Or perhaps he should have given a 30 minute negotiation coaching session to OP for free? He could do either of these, and others might, but this is business first and not necessary.

[lacker]

OP was a bad negotiator and he's acknowledging it.

To me this seems like the "reality distortion field".

There's just no amount of "good negotiation" that is going to get Apple up from $50m to $150m here. Apple was willing to pay an acquihire amount of money and Ali wanted an acquisition that respected the last couple years of work they put in. The two sides were pretty far apart. So they didn't make a deal. That's all there is to it.

Steve Jobs somehow pulled a trick, though, convincing Ali that the reason everything went sour is that Ali was a bad negotiator. Just because he's Steve Jobs doesn't mean he knows the "correct" valuation of your startup! He's just trying to bully Ali into revealing whether there are other offers on the table.

The principles of negotiation here are simple... Ali had to find another company willing to pay a lot more than $50m. There's no way that a lot of talking to Apple is going to change how they view a small acquihire target.

I mean, saying "I know X" when in reality you aren't 100% confident... that's completely a Steve Jobs move! How many times did he say a product was absolutely amazing, when actually it's kind of just a middling quality Apple product?

[hammock]

>To me this seems like the "reality distortion field"....There's just no amount of "good negotiation" that is going to get Apple up from $50m to $150m here. Apple was willing to pay an acquihire amount of money and Ali wanted an acquisition that respected the last couple years of work they put in. The two sides were pretty far apart. So they didn't make a deal. That's all there is to it.

OP says he would have taken less than $150m ("we tried in vain to negotiate some lower number"). Whether that lower number would be under Apple's highest number, is unknown. So your point is well taken that "bad negotiator" is a bit subjective and assumes that a deal could have been struck.

[lacker]

So, looking into it a bit more, iLike ended up selling for $20m to Myspace roughly a year after this story happened. It sucks for Steve Jobs to say you're full of BS, but really, if there's a mistake here, the mistake is simply not taking the $50m. Ali probably could have called up corp dev the next day and said, ha ha wasn't it funny that Steve called me a bullshitter in that meeting, anyways I accept your offer.

Was it a mistake? In retrospect it would have made Ali more money, but I don't know, maybe iLike still had some chance of succeeding on its own at that point. Maybe it was just a calculated risk that didn't pan out.

Maybe the perfectly charismatic negotiator could have squeezed an extra 10% out of Apple but that just isn't that important compared to the decision of "should we sell the company for approximately 50m, or not?"

[johnwheeler]

I think jobs did him a favor. Didn't teach him anything worth the pain he felt, but didn't leave him with lingering questions where he really fucked up like a soft "no" would.

[jdgoesmarching]

OP clearly would have been willing to negotiate a better price and even Craig was trying to hold the deal together. This fell through because Steve was offended at being bluffed, not for any objective evaluation of business merit.

What I consider soft is lashing out over the smallest emotional slight, which Steve was famous for. I wish we would all stop pretending that the platonic ideal of a leader is having the emotional maturity of a toddler.

[tablespoon]

> What I consider soft is lashing out over the smallest emotional slight, which Steve was famous for. I wish we would all stop pretending that the platonic ideal of a leader is having the emotional maturity of a toddler.

Exactly. The lesson of this encounter wasn't anything more than: Steve Jobs had power and was willing to use it at the drop of a hat to puff up his ego over a tiny thing. Maybe there was something strategic behind that or maybe he just had anger issues and enough power that he didn't have to do anything about them.

[hammock]

You seem to be suggesting the problem is that Jobs allowed himself to get offended. Isn't it rather that there was a lack of trust between parties? In failing to recognize that "mark to model" does not work in the real world, and that you are worth whatever someone will pay for you, OP "lied" to Steve, who was "marking to market," by contrast. Whether or not OP intended to deceive, this was a misstep in the relationship.

[pas]

What? It was a 3-4 sentence exchange and Steve simply piledrived through the guy in his typical bully way. ("We'll make sure the investort accept it.") The startup wanted a higher price and the guy said it so with emphasis, this triggered Steve, and that's the end of the story, the blahblah about offers and trust doesn't really matter, as at that point it was about emotion. (They just met there was no established trust anyway.) The guy folded like a house of cards - as would probably anyone who happens to be doing their first negotiation to sell their company, especially doing it with the oh so powerful Mr Jobs.

And this huge analysis about deceptive intent makes no sense. Of course the startup wanted a price as high as they can get.

[toss1]

Totally agree that we should "stop pretending that the platonic ideal of a leader is having the emotional maturity of a toddler. ", and my respect for Jobs is very mixed in this regard

Yet this story increased my esteem for Jobs.

Jobs knew going in that Apple could build the feature set themselves, and invited the company on the chance that they could do it faster with an aqui-hire. He'd prepared and knew his numbers also, although he didn't need or intend to discuss them.

Now, everything goes swimmingly, and then this guy asks about numbers and expresses concern that his investors won't accept that. Fair enough, legit, and Steve instantly responds "Don't worry, we'll make sure they accept it." That should be WAY MORE than enough of a statement from someone like Jobs - he and his team obviously have huge experience at this, and the guy should have dropped it, and taken back that information, now more prepared. He should also have read the room and noticed that the tenor had changed and that's as far as it should be pushed.

Now, he goes ahead and doubles down basically demanding more money. It is now just about the money. Had he stopped at "I think we're worth more", it probably would have just ended at Steve saying "I don't think so", and leaving it to Eddy, maybe they'd make a deal, maybe not.

But then he instantly doubled down again, saying "I Know it is" - basically saying he had a competing term sheet at that value — when he had nothing. If he'd actually had a $150MM term sheet, Steve might have said, "ok, we'll consider it", or "you should take that deal".

But when Steve saw that there was nothing to back up the statement, what earthly reason could he have to want to even talk with the guy anymore? His time is too valuable to talk to liars, and he instantly lost any interest in acqui-hiring them.

It's impressive how Jobs instantly saw the BS and adjusted his attitude to the new reality.

Perhaps it'd be a tad better had Jobs not flashed anger at his wasted time and interacting with liars, but instead expressed sadness at the opportunity lost - could be a bit softer, but why? The situation is the same - SJ will not want you in the company even at a $1 aqui-hire.

It's critical to understand the level of game being played, and play it well. This guy played like he was in some college seminar instead of the top pro level, and he got burned. Good he's taking it so realistically.

[cutenewt]

Jobs also gets credit for being incredibly intuitive.

Very few negotiators can reverse their positions in nanoseconds and realize the better deal is no deal at all.

[mariodiana]

Jobs's notorious "Fuck Michael Dell" comment, to his employees, captures what you're saying, for me. A person is free to think what he or she likes of the man, but unlike most CEO's, he wan't mealy-mouthed.

[garrickvanburen]

The 'I know' vs 'I think' is a red herring.

Steve floated $1/user. In isolation, that's a fine initial consideration.

The OP's reaction - "that means we didn't create any initial value" - is 100% accurate response.

What you do with that epiphany is what's important.

In the end, iTunes Genius Sidebar didn't last long either.

[themodelplumber]

> in a subjective way ("I know" vs "I think")

These are both pretty subjective. But Jobs only got to attack one of them. "I think" would have been even easier to attack.

The CEO in question seems to have disengaged for subjective reasons related to points surrounding his ability to perceive himself from positions of weakness. As you said, he wasn't being deceptive, more like authentic and open. This Jobs didn't care for, in the sense of offering it room in the negotiation.

Jobs rightly perceived that you can negotiate powerfully with those in positions of emotional vulnerability if you develop subjective criticisms and refine them into more objective language via generalizations. But he had his own blind spots as well; it's more like he was lucky that op didn't take a different approach...but op was in a difficult place to begin with, this being Apple's platform.

[pas]

> that op didn't take a different approach

What whould have been a better approach?

[themodelplumber]

There are thousands of different approaches that could be developed based on who Jobs was.

But a better approach, that really depends on a lot of things. More than just words to say in the meeting context.

Anyway...

Jobs cared a lot about people as capital; he also cared about impact, creativity, and especially insight. He admired the big picture, but a huge problem for him was that he couldn't easily live in it. I think this was extremely frustrating and kept him floating in the limbo-like DMZ between daily details and the big picture.

So here's an approach I would have liked to try:

"OK, so you just heard about the software and how we think it's pretty neat. But you don't want the software. We know you're not that dull. It's really a story about our people, the developers who know Apple customers, and who have helped us build up a cult following. And we have new concepts underway that are even better. If you knew what we had planned, in the big picture, you'd sh*t your pants."

Then I'd talk about how universal the ideas are. Then because I'm a time traveler and op's situation is annoying, and I want to get in a little jab for op, maybe I'd add,

"But these days our problem is trust. Can we really trust the platform we're building on? Look at these platforms. People are stuck between two of them, at home and at work. We want to look forward and imagine what future trusted platforms look like, too. Maybe you want us to experience something like that trust in dealing with Apple, but then again maybe you're just like all the rest..."

[coldtea]

>simply for using the almost intrinsically abstract English language in a subjective way ("I know" vs "I think")

If you use "intrinsically abstract English language in a subjective way" in multi-million dollar deals or in medicinal practice, and you stand to benefit from it, then you could very well be a liar, or if sincere extremely dangerous to others...

[fellellor]

At some positions of responsibility you are required to make quick assessments of people that will govern how you interact with them in the future. There is no time to sit and think if this other person is a good father/mother/friend etc. That comes later when you seriously decide to invest in a relationship. I don’t see how forming strong first impressions for people you’ll hardly ever see again is a bad strategy.

To the one in the receiving end, you can choose to get intimidated by a larger than life personality like Steve Jobs, and focus on what he said to you and get crushed by any admonition or, conversely, lose your head by any praise.

This is not any good. Rather, look at the situation for what it is. It’s a mini-game. Good or bad outcomes should only inform future actions, and not be allowed to take over your thought process for unnecessarily long periods.

[Ozzie_osman]

Even if it was, it was a "bluff". I would have imagined someone like Steve Jobs has bluffed numerous times over his career too.

[mmacvicarprett]

I think you are missing the point, knowing is not about conviction but facts. OP put emphasis in it, he not just think he knew. If you say you know something it is expected that you have reasonable arguments and evidence to back them up. It is fine if you are wrong but if you do it without anything to show then you are just bullshitting.

[extrememacaroni]

But if Steve wanted to say "you're full of #%^#" and instead said "I admire your conviction", he'd be the liar.

[pas]

Both can be said in many ways that are not without integrity.

[JoshTko]

Are you arguing that Steve Jobs should have been less transparent to save the feelings of another CEO?

[barrenko]

This is one of those razor's edge situation where if you lose, you learn big, which I'm sure he did. Unfortunately, the world is not kind on losers.

[SergeAx]

In a tech world it is necessary to remember that ideas worth nothing. Well, a good idea may worth $100, a brilliant one $1000 top. Even if you can patent your idea, there is a cost to enforce your patent.

So, "stealing the idea" is an oxymoron, like "led zeppelin".