The Leadership Letter

Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.

Hide The Price By Bundling It

When one number scares a partner, wrap it inside a bigger one they can't easily unpack.

In terms of the Samsung proposal, a few thoughts: I realize that Jim noted a $50M a year number, but it'd be helpful to put that into perspective. What would that be in terms rev-share number, recognizing that we might prefer to hide it in some way? Note that I do think that a rev-share would be better at disincentizing other app stores being preloaded (given it'd defray revenues), which is why I liked the idea of offering a rev-share across Search and Play, but not breaking out the figures in our accounting to them. I'm confused on the homescreen exclusivity part. If they're distributing via Play, is the fight to have them remove Galaxy Store from the homescreen really worth fighting? I can see them digging in here and I'm not sure it's worth us being tied to it. For Hug, my main comment is: given there's now some larger thinking being kicked off around different rev-share models for Play (progressive rates, all-ads based, etc.), I wonder if the messaging around reducing effective rev-share can be toned down — this all becomes about (a) unifying our cross-Google product story to developers and (b) working with large partners in the way we / they should expect.

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Court Exhibit
In re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation (Epic v. Google)
3:21-md-02981 (CAND), Doc. 886-38, filed 2023-12-21
March 26, 2019
Public domain
View the primary source →