Well, I think this is written from the perspective of people who don’t have FAANG clients. I totally agree that when you do, the situation changes completely.

Well, I think this is written from the perspective of people who don’t have FAANG clients. I totally agree that when you do, the situation changes completely. There is an argument to be made that for a smaller/normal customer, the power balance between corporation and customer is about equal. Both have the right to fire each other and if the customer is toxic or takes more time to support than could be focused on something else, you should fire them. But the power dynamic changes once you start talking about big money. If you have a client that is responsible for 3/4 of your revenue, toxicity or not, firing them is easier said than done. And the bigger clients (FAANG types) know this too. There, I think the trick is to try to make the statement of work as clear as possible. The one thing about a FAANG client to remember is that not all accounts are created equal. If it’s not a six figure contract, just because you have a deal with someone from Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net doesn’t mean they can’t be fired. (It also doesn’t mean they have huge money or that your sales team can extort them. I had a podcast hosting provider try to upsell my zero-budget initiative into an enterprise plan my insanely low-volume podcast didn’t need by half-threatening to cut us off, just because I worked at a large media company. Needless to say, I fired them.)