[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..."