The Leadership Letter

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

Don't Pay for Customers You Already Own

If your partner brings no real users to the deal, they aren't a partner — they're a toll booth.

We gave them a very generous offer without the ability to run numbers or ask how they plan to implement choice and us as the default. To Sundar's point, if they offer two types of browsers, one with Y and one with Google (even on the Mac side), we are just paying for loyal Google users which means that Apple added no value but insists on receiving 50% of the revenue. My opinion is to tell Steve our offer yesterday was very generous considering Apple has not discussed fully their plans nor how Google would be placed as default in these other applications to measure benefit to Google. I would hold firm. What Steve is asking is another 2.5 yrs for Mac and iPhone and 18 mos for Windows. I agree with Steve that fences need to be mended but it is Apple who needs to mend the fence. We have acted as partners in good faith and they have not. Good partners would have given us their plans and time to evaluate before setting a clock for our decision. I would let them try someone else for search if they don't like our last offer. Again, the Mac users are pretty loyal to Google. Again, these are negotiating tactics that Steve is famous for to get his terms. — Joan Braddi

This edition is for members.

The daily letter is free. The archive — every prior edition, fully searchable — is for members. Sign in to start your free week.

Court Exhibit
United States v. Google LLC (Search)
1:20-cv-03010 (DCD), Trial Ex. UPX0552 — DOJ public archive
June 7, 2007
Public domain
View the primary source →