Real correspondence from the people running real companies — and what it reveals about leadership.
Topic
How leaders frame the long game when nobody is forcing them to.
153 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.
Sameer Samat & Laura Willis & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google ·18 OCT 2017
A price cut only helps you if it doesn't teach the market that your old price was negotiable.
Edward Cunningham & Sameer Samat & Jason Woloz & Jamie Rosenberg & Benjamin Poiesz & Mike Hochberg & Tian Lim & Dave Kleidermacher & Sebastian Porst & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google ·15 AUG 2018
A security vulnerability in a competitor's product is also a political and legal grenade — handle it before you pull the pin.
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.
Jamie Rosenberg & Colin Smith & Sameer Samat & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google ·8 AUG 2018
When a defector proves your platform isn't the only option, your first job is to make staying feel obviously worth it.
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.
Mike Petrillo & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·3 JUN 2016
A vague public commitment can steal credit for an idea while letting your rival define the price.
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.
[redacted] ·Apple ·8 JUN 2015
Unequal investment across your own platform is a message — and your most engaged users will read it loud and clear.
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.
[REDACTED] ·Meta ·8 NOV 2016
A real priority has one metric, a budget, and a bounty for anyone who signs up to move it.
Nick Clegg & Kang-Xing Jin ·Meta Platforms, Inc. ·27 AUG 2021
When your policy team is writing your product roadmap, you've already lost the timing war.
Elon Musk & Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·18 FEB 2016
A single alarming data point should reset how often your leadership team talks, not just what they talk about.
Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·12 JUL 2017
When you can't invent the answer, buy the conditions under which the answer becomes findable.
Sam Altman ·OpenAI ·6 MAR 2019
When your mission and your capital needs collide, invent the vehicle first — then go raise.
Sam Altman ·OpenAI ·31 AUG 2018
If your mission truly comes first, your legal structure has to prove it — even to yourself.
Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·13 SEP 2017
In a founding negotiation, spelling out who decides what — in writing — is more valuable than any equity number.
Mark Zuckerberg & [REDACTED] ·Meta (Facebook) ·9 APR 2012
When a small player is beating you on a new behavior, acquisition can be cheaper than the fight.
David Ebersman & Dan Levy ·Meta (Facebook) ·16 APR 2012
The cost savings will still be there in a year. The momentum won't.
Raymond Endres & Alex Schultz & Javier Olivan ·Meta/Facebook ·22 FEB 2014
If you build a team's identity around beating a rival, buying that rival creates a morale crisis, not a celebration.
[REDACTED] & Justin Osofsky & Mark Zuckerberg & Javier Olivan & David Fischer & Dan Rose & Mike Vernal & Mike Schroepfer ·Meta/Facebook ·10 JAN 2013
When a small revenue line helps a rival build a business that could replace you, the trade isn't close.
Jocelyn Goldfein ·Meta/Facebook ·13 SEP 2011
A good manager translates a boss's impatience into a plan — without abandoning the long-term build.
Chip Hall & Chris LaSala & Gargi Sur & Max Loubser & Jonathan Bellack & Roberto Ruju & Barbara B. Piermont & Thomas Jacques & George Levitte ·Google ·4 JAN 2017
The metric you pick isn't just how you measure success — it's the strategy itself.
Jonathan Bellack & Alex Shellhammer & Suzanne Blackburn & Lara O'Reilly ·Google ·12 JUL 2016
The most revealing strategy documents are the ones written in real time, when someone is still figuring out what to say publicly about rules they set privately.
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.
Eisar Lipkovitz & Jonathan Bellack & Sagnik Nandy & Chris Harris ·Google ·21 JUL 2017
When you own both sides of a market, you can turn a policy fight into a purchasing decision.
Chris Cox ·Meta/Facebook ·22 FEB 2011
When a small competitor breaks out a feature from your app and it explodes, that's not a threat to swat — it's a signal to copy.
Mark Zuckerberg ·Facebook ·11 FEB 2013
The most dangerous competitor isn't the one copying you today — it's the one entering through a door you left open.
Anthony Levandowski & Suzy Sammons ·Uber ·28 MAR 2017
When two fires break out at once, the fastest move is to assign one firefighter to each — and make the split explicit before the meeting starts.
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 & Tia Arzu & Paul Gennai & Jamie Rosenberg ·Google ·23 JUN 2018
Before you negotiate, know exactly how much the other side needs you — and make sure your team does too.
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.
Purnima Kochikar & Tim Sweeney & Donald Harrison & Hiroshi Lockheimer ·Google / Epic Games ·10 DEC 2019
When you're picking a fight with a giant, don't ask for an exception — demand a rule change, and make sure everyone is watching.
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.
Kirsten Rasanen & Samer Sayigh ·Google ·21 DEC 2023
The best-designed policy loses to the loudest possible critic — until you honestly weigh the cost of doing nothing.
Amy Hood ·Microsoft ·26 JUN 2023
When your platform is losing relevance, don't defend it — buy the assets that live on the platforms that are winning.
Apple Legal Department ·Apple Inc. ·4 SEP 2020
When someone attacks your pricing, don't defend the price — redefine what they're actually paying for.
Apple Legal Department ·Apple Inc. ·8 SEP 2020
When someone attacks your price, don't defend the price — redefine what they're actually paying for.
Apple Legal Department ·Apple Inc. ·15 SEP 2020
When someone attacks your fee, don't defend the fee — redefine what they're actually buying.
Elon Musk & Andrej Karpathy ·OpenAI ·1 FEB 2018
If you can't match a giant's scale, publishing your best ideas is a subsidy to them, not a strategy against them.
Elon Musk & Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·13 SEP 2017
Control isn't a feeling — it's a seat count, and smart founders draw the arithmetic before the fight, not during it.
Michael Rapino & Mark Campana & Irving Azoff & Peter Luukko & Eric Gardner & Brad Wavra ·Live Nation / Ticketmaster ·18 APR 2019
If your sales team and your operations team are both hitting the same customer with different asks, you don't have a strategy — you have a turf war.
Tim Leiweke & Michael Rapino ·Live Nation Entertainment / Ticketmaster ·27 FEB 2021
A competitor's headline offer can look devastating until you realize it depends on an approval that will never come.
Andy Hewitt & Brian Smith & Colin Lewis & Jenny Heifetz Henault ·Live Nation Entertainment ·23 MAR 2021
The most valuable thing you can own isn't the venue — it's the right to keep your competitor out of it.
Michael Rapino & David Marcus & Tara Traub & Mark Yovich & Michael Wichser ·Live Nation Entertainment / Ticketmaster ·22 AUG 2022
The moment a client's manager whispers 'double dipping,' you have minutes to build a clear answer — or you have a narrative crisis.
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.
Jim Giles & Eisar Lipkovitz & Jonathan Bellack & Payam Shodjai & Chris LaSala ·Google ·4 NOV 2017
When your product bundles a commodity with something rare, price the commodity like a utility and hide your margin inside what only you can offer.
Jim Giles & Eisar Lipkovitz & Jonathan Bellack & Payam Shodjai & Chris LaSala ·Google LLC ·4 NOV 2017
If the market is racing your margin to zero, either bundle your way out of the fight or pick which piece you're willing to give away first.
Julie Sterling & Jonathan Bellack & Drew Bradstock & Alex Shellhammer ·Google ·11 NOV 2015
If your frontline can't answer the obvious question, the problem isn't training — it's that you haven't decided what you actually believe.
Scott Spencer & Jonathan Bellack & Scott Cunningham ·Google ·11 OCT 2015
If your product's integration advantage forces the market to build ugly workarounds, the workarounds eventually become the market.
Tom Oliveri & Philipp Schindler & Hiroshi Lockheimer & John Giannandrea & Sundar Pichai ·Google ·26 AUG 2016
If you can't measure it before you ship it, you're not experimenting — you're guessing with revenue.
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.
Jonathan Bellack & Assaf Grabinsky & Nitish Korula & Drew Bradstock & Vahab Mirrokni & Martin Blais ·Google ·4 AUG 2015
When your own pricing structure drives customers to build workarounds, the real threat isn't the workaround — it's the rule.
Elon Musk & Greg Brockman & Ilya Sutskever & Jared Birchall ·OpenAI ·21 JUL 2017
The most important strategic decision isn't where you start — it's knowing which structure you'll need next, and when to trigger the shift.
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.
Sam Altman & Elon Musk ·OpenAI ·18 FEB 2023
When a former ally attacks you in public, don't defend — pivot to asking what they'd do instead.
Mark Zuckerberg & Elon Musk ·Meta, Tesla/X ·13 DEC 2024
The most valuable currency between competitors isn't money — it's a heads-up before the news breaks.
Eddy Cue ·Apple ·10 JAN 2013
When a rival's business model forces them to behave in ways users dislike, that tension is your product opportunity.
Eugene W. Landy ·UMH Properties, Inc. ·13 MAR 2008
The best time to be bullish on a market is right after everyone else has abandoned it.
Steven E. Fass & David T. Foy ·White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd ·10 APR 2006
Risk models are tools, not oracles — and the leaders who survive bad years are the ones who say so out loud.
DSP Group Board of Directors ·DSP Group Inc ·11 MAR 2013
Control of the boardroom is control of strategy — and some investors know exactly how to take it one committee at a time.
Jack Dorsey & Sarah Friar ·Square, Inc. ·3 AUG 2016
The real moat isn't the hardware — it's every product a seller adopts after the first swipe.
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.
Jack Dorsey ·Block, Inc. ·2 NOV 2023
When the company is growing faster than the business, the fix is a hard ceiling, not a pep talk.
Roku Management ·Roku ·21 FEB 2019
The platform that wins the eyeballs first will collect the ad dollars second — Roku is betting the sequence matters.
DoorDash Leadership ·DoorDash ·15 FEB 2024
Growth and efficiency aren't opposites — they're phases. Knowing which phase you're in is the job.
Tony Xu ·DoorDash ·11 FEB 2025
Profit and growth aren't opposites when capital follows evidence, not enthusiasm.
Tony Xu ·DoorDash ·18 FEB 2026
The product your customer sees is rarely the product that decides whether you win.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·10 NOV 2022
The best risk management happens months before the storm, not during it.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·6 MAR 2024
Before going on offense, fix the math on the losses you can actually control.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·2 MAY 2024
Deliberately slowing growth in the short term can be the fastest way to reach sustainable growth — if you're cutting the right risks, not the right customers.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·8 AUG 2024
The best time to prove your risk controls work is when the whole industry is bleeding — and you're not.
Richard McCathron ·Hippo Holdings Inc. ·7 MAY 2025
The best time to expand is right after you've finished cutting — not before.
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.
Matt Fischer ·Apple Inc. ·21 AUG 2018
The moment your partners consistently refuse your terms, you have two choices: lose them or adapt — and waiting too long to decide is its own decision.
Tim Sweeney ·Epic Games ·30 JUN 2020
When you can't beat a gatekeeper on their terms, reframe the fight as being about their customers, not you.
Tim Sweeney ·Epic Games ·17 JUL 2020
When a business dispute stops being about money and starts being about principle, the other side's lawyers are no longer the audience — the public and the courts are.
Neal Mohan & Joan Braddi ·Google ·3 SEP 2008
The smartest strategy documents don't just show where you're winning — they name exactly where the work isn't done yet.
Neal Mohan ·Google ·31 JAN 2009
Be open to partners — until the partner's product replaces the part of yours that actually makes money.
Netflix Investor Relations ·Netflix ·21 APR 2014
When you face bigger rivals on every side, define the game by the two things only you can do well.
Reed Hastings & Netflix Leadership ·Netflix ·16 JUL 2020
Formalizing power someone already has is cheaper than losing them — and clearer for everyone watching.
Ted Sarandos & Greg Peters & Spence Neumann & Spencer Wang ·Netflix ·18 OCT 2023
If you want to justify a massive cost center, show how it drives margin expansion at the same time — then the spending becomes the strategy.
Andy Jassy ·Amazon ·11 APR 2024
When your core business gets cheaper to run, every new bet you place gets cheaper to fund.
Andy Jassy ·Amazon ·10 APR 2025
Most companies optimize inside the room they're standing in; the best ones keep asking why the door is locked.
Andy Jassy ·Amazon ·9 APR 2026
Durable companies don't bet on one straight line — they build the muscle to zig, zag, and start over without losing momentum.
Warren Buffett ·Berkshire Hathaway ·1 MAR 2010
Liquidity is a strategic weapon disguised as a boring balance sheet item — its real return shows up only when everyone else runs out.
Tim Sweeney ·Epic Games ·13 AUG 2020
When you deliberately break a powerful partner's rules, the letter you send isn't a negotiation — it's the opening statement of a lawsuit you've already prepared.
Elon Musk & Andrej Karpathy ·OpenAI ·1 FEB 2018
Open research without a profit engine isn't idealism — it's free R&D for whoever has the bigger bank account.
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.
Elon Musk & Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·20 SEP 2017
The moment your funder's leverage looks like a path to absolute control, your co-founders stop building and start negotiating their exit.
Ilya Sutskever ·OpenAI ·12 JUL 2017
If the bottleneck is hardware, the winner is whoever buys the most of it first.
Greg Brockman ·OpenAI ·31 JAN 2018
When you can't outspend competitors, out-trust them — moral high ground is a strategic asset, not a slogan.
Mark Zuckerberg ·Meta Platforms, Inc. ·11 FEB 2012
If a small competitor has already won the use case your future depends on, the cheapest option is usually to buy them — before the market figures out how valuable they are.
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.
Prabhakar Raghavan ·Google ·20 JUN 2019
If a competitor might be eating your lunch one bite at a time, build the instruments to see the bites — don't settle for gut feel.
Prabhakar Raghavan ·Google ·1 JAN 2019
If your pricing model only has two players in it, you've already mispriced — the third player is the door your customer can walk through.
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.
David Drummond ·Google ·23 MAR 2007
A build-it-yourself plan is only valid until a competitor's checkbook makes the timeline irrelevant.
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 ·Google LLC ·23 MAR 2009
An acquired business is worth more than its P&L — cut it like a standalone and you destroy the very reason you bought it.
Neal Mohan & Scott Spencer & Joerg Heilig ·Google LLC ·21 APR 2009
Scale wins fights, but a competitor copying your structure can become a real threat long before they look like one on paper.
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.
Neal Mohan ·Google LLC ·11 OCT 2010
Sometimes you acquire a rival not to use what they built, but to stop the clock while you fix what you have.
Neal Mohan ·Google LLC ·18 OCT 2010
When you sit on both sides of a market, the appearance of fairness is a product feature — and you have to build the org chart to protect it.
Neal Mohan ·Google LLC ·19 OCT 2010
Strategy reviews are worthless if leaders won't say out loud what they got wrong.
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.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google LLC ·16 JUN 2011
When 60% of your paying customers are already using a competitor's tool inside your own platform, you don't have a partnership problem — you have a survival problem.
Woojin Kim & Drew Bradstock & Allan Livingston ·Google ·26 JUL 2012
If your internal product can only win by being kept on a leash, you haven't built a strong product — you've just built a wall.
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.
Drew Bradstock ·Google LLC ·22 JUL 2015
When competitors find a cheap workaround to your premium product, the real question isn't whether to fight it — it's whether your pricing power survives if you don't.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google LLC ·6 SEP 2016
When rivals attack your business model, your real moat is the one workflow they cannot route around.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google LLC ·29 OCT 2016
If you measure the whole market instead of the slice customers can actually move, you'll misjudge both your power and your problem.
Jonathan Bellack & Eisar Lipkovitz & Brad Bender & Paul Muret & Danielle Romain ·Google LLC ·10 NOV 2016
A price cut with no strategic story is just margin you gave away for nothing.
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.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google ·10 MAY 2018
Every dollar that flows through someone else's exchange is a dollar where you don't set the toll — and Bellack's math shows just how big that toll can be.
Jonathan Bellack ·Google ·17 OCT 2016
Senior leaders are paid not for the insight that points at action, but for the plan a hundred people can actually execute.
Jeff Bezos ·Amazon.com, Inc. ·30 MAR 1998
The discipline isn't in what Bezos optimized for. It's in what he refused to apologize for not optimizing.
Mark Zuckerberg ·Facebook, Inc. ·28 FEB 2012
Eight years later, this paragraph would be sitting in front of a House subcommittee, a federal judge, and the Federal Trade Commission.
Satya Nadella ·Microsoft ·13 OCT 2023
Read this memo as a brief to Microsoft employees and it is bland. Read it as a brief to regulators, courts, and reporters and it is meticulous.
Reed Hastings ·Netflix ·18 SEP 2011
Five words. No throat-clearing. No qualifier. The apology arrives before the explanation, which is the only order that ever works.
Warren Buffett ·Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. ·27 FEB 2009
Buffett doesn't apologize for the loss. He apologizes for the analysis. Those are different things and most CEOs conflate them.