The Leadership Letter

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

Bundle Your Assets Before A Partner Unbundles You

When one partner controls half your revenue, stop negotiating deal by deal — treat every dollar you send them as one connected bet.

To quickly answer Jamie's question, the answer is yes... I do believe search revenue share and Play should be contemplated as one commercial/value exchange.

Some quick facts: - In 2018, Samsung devices were responsible for ~53% of all search revenue through Android - With respect to Play, the number is around 50%. - Approximately 20% of search revenue on Samsung devices flows through S-browser. 25-30% through Chrome. The rest through the widget. - Samsung Mobile spends around $400M per year on cloud services through AWS.

The things I want to maintain or introduce in the RSA are: i) S-browser defaults (maintain) ii) 2 search/assistant training screens out of box (maintain) iii) button remappability (new) iv) do not pay on the search widget for text-based searches (new) v) only pay on the widget for voice-based searches (new).

Current revenue share rate is 25% (after 20% deduction). I'd reduce the revenue share on S-browser to 20%. I'd increase the revenue share on Chrome to 30% IF it is in the hotseat. This saves around $2B in TAC over 4 years.

On the store proposal, [Samsung's Patrick] said, 'So you're basically asking us to get out of the store business.' [Jamie Rosenberg] said, 'We're proposing that we focus together on helping you achieve your goals in a different way, and in a way that keeps us aligned to collaborate technically and with our message to the ecosystem.' He said, 'I would just encourage you to be as aggressive as possible on this in your proposal.'

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Court Exhibit
In re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation (Epic v. Google)
3:21-md-02981 (CAND), Doc. 886-58, filed 2023-12-21
May 30, 2019
Public domain
View the primary source →