5 ms·

Some people enjoy throwing their weight around and winning even relatively meaningless concessions, which marks them as high status. This can make it easier to

Some people enjoy throwing their weight around and winning even relatively meaningless concessions, which marks them as high status. This can make it easier to win meaningful concessions at the margin, or to turn "not asking for concessions" into "you owe me one". Robert Ringer has some pretty apt descriptions of this type & how to deal with them in a couple of his more popular books.

ghaff 13y ago
With all due respect, I think you and others are missing the point here. This wasn't so much about Jobs "throwing his weight around" (abrasive style notwithstanding) but about him having an externally committed number that it was important to him and to others at the company to have met. Structuring the deal in such a way that this objective could be achieved opened a path to a negotiation that could satisfy both sides.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  You're right, the point of the article was to reflect on her, not on Jobs. But that doesn't mean we can't analyze his behavior. Presumably the number was "important" in an absolute sense because a number that high represented a fair amount of money, or at least taking margin from the publisher, because of the super-high quality of the software (remember, he made the promise trying to flatter the development team). Instead, the deal was structured strictly worse (less transparent revenue stream, same amount of money - and I'd be surprised if it was actually the same amount of money). Because he made a grand gesture as a status move, first to his team, and then to his vendors. There's no way in which "make an outrageous promise, make an outrageous demand to fulfil that promise, accept a strictly worse settlement that saves face" reflects well on his end of the negotiation. "He wanted to be able to tell everyone he got what he wanted."

5 ms·

Some people enjoy throwing their weight around and winning even relatively meaningless concessions, which marks them as high status. This can make it easier to

by fiatmoney 13y ago

ghaff 13y ago
With all due respect, I think you and others are missing the point here. This wasn't so much about Jobs "throwing his weight around" (abrasive style notwithstanding) but about him having an externally committed number that it was important to him and to others at the company to have met. Structuring the deal in such a way that this objective could be achieved opened a path to a negotiation that could satisfy both sides.
- fiatmoney 13y ago
  You're right, the point of the article was to reflect on her, not on Jobs. But that doesn't mean we can't analyze his behavior. Presumably the number was "important" in an absolute sense because a number that high represented a fair amount of money, or at least taking margin from the publisher, because of the super-high quality of the software (remember, he made the promise trying to flatter the development team). Instead, the deal was structured strictly worse (less transparent revenue stream, same amount of money - and I'd be surprised if it was actually the same amount of money). Because he made a grand gesture as a status move, first to his team, and then to his vendors. There's no way in which "make an outrageous promise, make an outrageous demand to fulfil that promise, accept a strictly worse settlement that saves face" reflects well on his end of the negotiation. "He wanted to be able to tell everyone he got what he wanted."