Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.
Topic
Deals, alliances, and the leverage underneath them.
55 letters · most recent first
Shanna Velez & Mike Marchak & Purnima Kochikar & Alyssa Ablao & Josh Kim & Randy Gelber ·Google ·15 DEC 2021
When you can't grant a carveout, invent a program — same economics, but the rule stays intact.
Don ·Google ·14 MAR 2023
When one business unit can't justify the check alone, stack the strategic value across the whole company — or lose the partner entirely.
Karen Aviram Beatty & Lawrence Koh ·Google ·11 DEC 2019
When you stack asks to justify a payment, the other side sees complexity — and offers you a simpler exit.
Johan Heurlin & Lawrence Koh & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·27 MAR 2019
The smartest concessions look like co-investment, not subsidies — same money, very different risk.
Brandon Barras & Sameer Samat & Kirsten Rasanen ·Google ·27 JUN 2017
The real cost of a discount isn't the revenue you lose — it's the pricing power you can never rebuild.
Erin Crosby & Jim Kolotouros & Sameer Samat & Jamie Rosenberg & Paul Gennai & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google ·19 JUN 2019
The real negotiation isn't about money — it's about locking in the business model before you write any check.
Jamie Rosenberg & Purnima Kochikar ·Google ·27 AUG 2013
If you can't publish the terms, don't pretend they're standard — say plainly that this deal is bespoke.
Michael Murphy & Shafiq Ahmed & Philipp Schindler & Sridhar Ramaswamy ·Google ·21 JUL 2018
Sometimes you overpay one customer so you never have to renegotiate with the next hundred.
Jamie Rosenberg & Donald Harrison & Michael Murphy ·Google ·11 JUL 2018
The fastest way to defend a platform is to make leaving it more expensive than staying.
Tim Sweeney & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google ·22 JUL 2020
The moment a platform grants one developer a private deal, it loses the argument for every other developer.
Tim Sweeney & Jamie Rosenberg ·Epic Games / Google ·22 JUN 2018
When you refuse a deal, refuse the whole game — not just the terms on the table.
Sameer Samat & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·8 JUN 2016
You can do the work earlier and still lose the story if you never tell it.
Sarah Karam & Purnima Kochikar & Brandon Barras & Adrian Ong ·Google ·20 JUN 2018
The loudest complaint is rarely about the thing being complained about.
Adrian Ong & Purnima Kochikar ·Google / Match Group ·19 JUN 2018
The most dangerous contract clause isn't the price — it's the one that hands your retention mechanics to someone else.
Peter Stern & Matt Fischer & Philip Schiller & Carson Oliver & Adrian Ong ·Apple Inc. / Match Group ·28 JAN 2019
When you're a top customer paying a rack-rate meant for someone else, quantify the mismatch and name the comparable — don't complain, benchmark.
Scott Spencer & Nemo Semret & Eyal Manor & Craig DiNatali ·Google ·7 FEB 2011
A competitor winning your best customer is painful — but it's also the clearest product roadmap you'll ever get.
Jonathan Bellack & Aparna Pappu & Jim Giles & Chris LaSala & Josh Cohen & Max Loubser & Laurent Cordier & Justin Pang ·Google ·1 FEB 2017
A dominant market position isn't the same as a defensible price — and knowing the difference before your customer does is the whole game.
Travis Kalanick & David Drummond ·Uber / Google ·7 MAR 2015
A calendar tells you more about a partnership than any press release ever will.
Ed Baker & Jessica E. Lessin ·Uber ·26 DEC 2014
The moment a board member starts leaving the room, the partnership is already over — the question is just who moves first.
Lawrence Koh ·Google ·13 FEB 2020
When a partner is about to walk, buy the pause first and negotiate the terms later.
Paul Gennai & Atul Kumar & Samer Sayigh & Jamie Rosenberg & Alexi Douvas & Shafiq Ahmed & Mike Petrillo ·Google ·26 MAR 2019
When one number scares a partner, wrap it inside a bigger one they can't easily unpack.
Jim Kolotouros & Jamie Rosenberg & Hiroshi Lockheimer & Sameer Samat ·Google ·30 MAY 2019
When one partner controls half your revenue, stop negotiating deal by deal — treat every dollar you send them as one connected bet.
Kirsten Rasanen & Sameer Samat & Wilson White & Paul Feng ·Google ·17 OCT 2017
When you're about to close a door on a big partner, walking through it in person costs you nothing and buys you information you can't get any other way.
Kirsten Rasanen & Jamie Rosenberg & Sameer Samat ·Google ·18 SEP 2017
When a policy will anger your biggest partners, negotiate them into it privately before the world hears about it.
Kirsten Rasanen ·Google ·7 FEB 2018
A 10% discount can't buy compliance when the real objection is losing control of the customer.
Purnima Kochikar & Sarah Karam & Brandon Barras & Paul Feng & Sameer Samat ·Google ·23 JUL 2019
If a user was already searching for your product before arriving at the platform, the platform didn't create that demand — and both sides know it.
Purnima Kochikar & Jamie Rosenberg & Sidney Lee & Marc Shedroff ·Google ·10 JUN 2020
The most powerful concession is one you give verbally and can quietly take back — without ever touching the written agreement.
Purnima Kochikar & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·19 JUL 2018
Great negotiators don't just prepare arguments — they stage-manage what the other side hears, when, and from whom.
Purnima Kochikar & Jamie Rosenberg & Bob Meese ·Google ·3 AUG 2013
Developers won't pay you 30% to process a credit card. They'll pay it to reach customers.
Jamie Rosenberg & Tian Lim & Erin Crosby & Sameer Samat ·Google ·7 FEB 2019
When a partner tries to build a competing store, don't fight the ambition — offer to power it.
Joe Berchtold & Michael Wichser ·Live Nation/Ticketmaster ·12 AUG 2022
When you already have most of the volume, the only deal worth signing is one that locks in the future and protects what you have.
Ruth Porat & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·21 JUL 2017
The real deal isn't the revenue share — it's what you have to give up to earn it.
Neal Mohan & David Rosenblatt & Marc Schraer & Sean Downey & Andrew Rutledge & Ruth Kirschner ·Google ·13 FEB 2009
When a rival slashes prices out of desperation, the answer isn't matching them — it's reminding your customers what game you're actually playing.
Neal Mohan & Eric Rosenblum ·Google ·20 AUG 2010
When a young business is fighting to establish itself, the worst thing you can do is bury it inside a bigger org chart.
Julie Sterling Osterling & Jonathan Bellack & Heidi O'brien & Chris Jansen & Brian Tomasette & Jason Sigalos ·Google ·29 SEP 2015
If your own sales team can't explain why you don't do the thing customers want, the market has already made the decision for you.
Dario Amodei & Emil Michael ·Anthropic ·26 FEB 2026
When the other side rewrites your redlines into meaningless words, name the trick precisely — then keep the door open.
Square Investor Relations Team ·Square, Inc. ·1 NOV 2016
The strongest growth signal in this letter isn't revenue — it's that larger sellers are choosing Square on product merit, not discounts.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·6 AUG 2025
The smartest asset sale isn't an exit — it's a trade: cash plus a bigger channel.
Neal Mohan ·Google ·31 JAN 2009
Be open to partners — until the partner's product replaces the part of yours that actually makes money.
Elon Musk ·OpenAI ·28 JUN 2017
The fastest way to build a moat is to make someone else's resources do the work — before your rivals think to ask.
Kate Plikus ·Microsoft ·2 OCT 2018
In ad markets, scale isn't just an advantage — it's the price of admission to compete at all.
Jeff Shardell ·Google ·4 JUN 2007
When a partner asks for the same price on a worse deal, the right answer starts with naming what you're actually buying.
Michael Murphy ·Google ·17 MAR 2020
Sometimes the smartest negotiation move is paying your partners less — if you can redirect that money to win the customers who matter most.
Denelle Dixon-Thayer ·Mozilla ·4 NOV 2014
Sometimes the best deal isn't the biggest check — it's the one that buys you back your independence.
Joan Braddi & Sundar Pichai & Sergey Brin & Jonathan Rosenberg ·Google ·7 JUN 2007
If your partner brings no real users to the deal, they aren't a partner — they're a toll booth.
Anna Kartasheva ·Google ·4 JUN 2020
When you can't win the device, win every doorway on it.
Nate Morgan ·Google ·19 OCT 2019
The moment you have data that proves your recommendation was correct, stop being polite — escalate immediately and make the case with numbers.
Eileen Naughton ·Google ·19 MAY 2008
The most valuable approval you can get isn't a blank check — it's a conditional yes that tells you exactly where the limits are.
Neal Mohan & Jonathan Bellack & Brad Bender & Ari Paparo ·Google LLC ·25 JUN 2009
Once you open a platform to everyone, you lose the right to choose who gets to compete with you on it — so pick your moment carefully.
Jag Duggal ·Google ·6 APR 2010
If you control the plumbing on both the buyer and seller side, you don't just win transactions — you define the rules of the game.
Kento Sugiura ·Google ·23 AUG 2010
When you sit in the middle of a market, your biggest danger isn't one competitor — it's being squeezed from every direction at once.
Zachary Goldberg ·Google ·18 FEB 2011
If rivals are already selling what you fear to build, the only thing worse than disrupting your own business is letting them do it for you.
Marc Theermann ·Google ·10 SEP 2012
When you have a product everyone wants, the real question isn't how to sell it — it's what else you can pull through the door with it.
Eisar Lipkovitz & Jonathan Bellack ·Google LLC ·4 JAN 2017
Whoever owns the decision-maker in a stack owns the economics — everything else is just inventory.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google ·20 JAN 2017
When a customer pulls the plug, you have one shot — show them what they're losing, not just what you'll discount.