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 "imp

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."