"Don't argue with me. $100,000 is fair, and you know it."
folklore.org
folklore.org
Why wasn't I doing that already? I'd been reading too much Dijkstra, that the "competent" programmer can show whether his code will work or not. It's definitely possible to do it that way, but it's (very sadly) too high a standard for me to reach in reasonable time (or maybe at all), for more than toy problems. Dijkstra used this approach to write a multitasking operating system. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do that.
You'd be surprised at how doable that is if you actually tried. It's the same as every other problem in programming: break it down in to two pieces, figure out which one is the easier, if it is trivial solve it, otherwise recurse.
You'd need an overall sketch of the architecture before you began but once you have that worked out it's 'just programming' to get you to the finish line.
The hardest part to get right is security, especially if you go multi-user, but since you just specify 'multitasking operating system' that one is somewhat limited in scope.
(such thinking probably gave us windows ;) )...
Easier to not inject a bug in the first place than to try to find it later.
It can be a slow process with less 'instant gratification' than web programming.
It is compared to QEMU :)
This was before the age of virtual machines on PCs. Getting it to become self hosting took about 6 months or so.
And a guy who is famous both for being incredibly clever and for being rather arrogant and insecure told all his competitors that they were incompetent if they didn't do it the hard way.
Programming is a form of mathematics. Maths papers are terse and beautiful and look as though they have sprung fully armed from the head of Zeus.
But you don't see the days of hacking through examples and crazy leaps of intuition (that are almost always wrong) in the finished paper, because the mathematician removes them from the story in order to leave an argument that is easy to verify.
I am not saying that Dijkstra couldn't do things the hard way. I would be amazed if his best stuff was done the hard way.
Lakatos in his "Proofs and Refutations" addresses precisely this topic.
Even Alonzo Church published work that was later shown to be logically inconsistent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus I came across
In my limited experience negotiating on fees for programming or selling software I've heard this line a few times. "You seem like a really good programmer, that program probably would have only taken you say 2 days, times that by an average hourly rate and thats the rate I'm willing to pay for the program and all source code".
Always a sign for me that things aren't going to go well.
Bzzt - "really good programmers" aren't paid an "average hourly rate" - they're paid an absurdly high hourly rate.
You've got to be willing to walk away, to call their bluff to find another programmer to do what you did for less.
And when they come back, the price is higher because you both know that they don't have as many options as they thought that they had before. (Alternatively, they've admitted that the options that they were using to beat you down don't exist.)
I could tell when he came out of this superyacht moored out in the ocean and camped out next to us reading a book in the shade while we were grabbing some sun on a nice little tropical island. (Didn't bother to bother him - as tempting as it was - I figured he should be able to enjoy the peace and quiet and beautify of the place just like everyone else without being hassled)
What really mattered was how much it was worth to Microsoft or Apple and especially that it was worth a good bit to both. Picture Scotty asking if that's worth somthin' t'ye or shd'aye just punch up clear?
Imagine Andy's horror, for example, if Steve had someone else build the Apple-blessed switcher instead and it worked but lacked the elegance and care of the Hertzfeld version.
Steve ended up having something Andy wanted, too. I gotta believe Jobs is a tough enough negotiator under the best of circumstances. Imagine when he's got you by your idealism.
And, like you said, Andy already admitted he wanted it on all Macs, which blew any chance at leverage he had.
I'm not certain it's historically accurate.
Better than that, I'm 100% sure I was. Facetious comment was for the lulz, but it seems people enjoyed having the joke explained so it's all good :-)
one of my favourite scenes from the movie series :)
I was expecting at least a cease and desist or lawsuit would be involved.
If you don't know one off the top of your head and you are in a pinch, go with the cockiest asshole you know. While they may not be skilled negotiators, there attitude will deflect a lot of the low ball crap like the scare tactics mentioned in this article.
Negotiating is a mental game and that is why they say if you are weak at it don't do it in person. You will give yourself away with dozens of non-verbal actions. You can learn to not exhibit certain behaviors but that is only a third of the game, you also have to be firm and confident (the mental part) which has to be in your nature and then finally you have to be able to read their non-verbal communication.
That is why if you are not good, you are better to battle it out on a different field, as you are given the other party a significant advantage, 2/3 as a matter of fact, you are given them your non-verbal indicators and you are not picking up theirs, so you now you only have the last 1/3 to stand on. Hence if you have to do it, find an asshole because they have mastered that 1/3.
To answer you question more directly, a skilled delegate should be your first line, email should be your second and phone should be your third. Without a delegate, email is your best bet because you have the luxury of getting other people to vet it before the communication happens. Try to avoid the phone while negotiations are taking place, they are going to try to ambush you with a phone call, if they are a good negotiator because it bring you back half way to their battleground. In your first email on negotiations try to set the stage for email being the grounds that negotiations will take place. There is a plethora of valid reasons to do it over email, find one and stick with it.
If the initial contact happens in person, try to exit the situation without an answer like, let me think it over and I will get back to you or I have to discuss it with my partners (wife, dad, dog) before I can give you a firm commitment. This places the current negotiations in a suspended state, until you are in a position to resume them on your chosen battleground.
If you have a stake in the outcome, and you're emotionally involved do not negotiate directly, place someone in between you and the other party. That gives you a bit of perspective and time to think things over before responding.
This is especially important if you are easy to 'read'.
The way to improve your negotiation skills is to be the negotiator for others in small stakes situations, then build it up over time to higher stakes.
I know a few people who are really good at negotiating - the difference between what they can achieve and what an "amateur" (like me) will get in a similar situation is astounding.
Apple wasn't paying for the same insider knowledge of their platform's functionality that they already had; they were paying for the additional work that created new functionality.
I don't see any reason why he shouldn't have asked for as much as he thought the product was worth.
EDIT found a video of Ron telling the story in person http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7497796873809571567...
A skilled engineer Andy was obviously a very poor salesman, a trait both Bill and Steve saw immediately. They took advantage of the situation for the benefit of the company and although wording might be harsh, what they did was fair.
It was up to Andy to haggle.
Bill wrote a unneeded "thank you" letter to Andy. Doesn't look like what a jerk does.
And he eventually got $ 150,000 for his work. That's a fair amount of money, isn't it?
Contradicts the rest of what you wrote... The strongest point against that I can see is the fact that he saw it somewhere else first.
Do you mean they should have been "nice" to him? If yes, why? They were doing business, not having a cocktail party.
This is definitely not true. If I were Jobs (which I'm arguably not, so it is possible that you can't 'get there' by being nice) I would have seen quite a few possibilities achieving the same without coming off as a jerk.
Maybe we disagree on that, but I don't think you need to be like that in order to succeed. Some of the wealthiest people that I have known would never think of treating another person that way, business or not, and I find it surprising that Jobs would do this. It's just my personal take on this, don't make it in to an absolute.
I disagree when you say they haven't been nice with Andy. They've been "hard", but not mean (to me) and certainly not jerks. Steve used a fallacy to move his agenda but that's typical haggling (What! This used car is mint! And you want me to sell it for that price? You want me to close my business?!!).
Let's not forget the story is told from Andy's point of view. Bill and Jobs were probably very assertive and Andy might be sensitive to the point he perceived that negatively.
That's very true, and from the other side it might come out very different.
I understand you probably did not have this story in mind when you made your comment, but he sounds like a jerk to me.
Most great physicists make some of their incredible discoveries when they are young.
Mark Zuckerburg was in college when facebook was created. Same with Napster and dozens of others.
Maybe, there is something special about that age. It is when you can actually use the brainpower, business intelligence, ext. If you have the goods, they seem to show around that age.
"The tendency [to take risks] probably affects one in five people, mostly young males, and declines with age. It may ensure our survival, even spur our evolution as individuals and as a species. Risk taking probably bestowed a crucial evolutionary advantage."
> "What do you mean?" I asked him, genuinely puzzled.
> "There's no way that you could have written that program without confidential information that you learned by working at Apple. You don't have the right to charge whatever you like for it.""
Wow... that makes me think a whole lot less of Steve Jobs.
That information should have been public knowledge anyway, to try to claim a stake in something that someone wrote just because you don't document your stuff is really low.
However, some trades are completely unfair.
Example, Native Americans trading the island of Manhattan for a few dollars of beads.
Even though it is great business. It is immoral to me to lie about the value of a product. Just as it would be immoral to lie about it's functions.
However, I can easily empathize with people who try to get the best deal for themselves/their company.
Go try bargaining for carpets in Morocco... it's great fun. They'll start at like $2000. You'll walk away with a carpet for $200. Some other guy will walk away with the same (well, they're all unique, but let's same the same in terms of craftsmanship and materials) for $2000. Both are happy, because they feel they paid a fair price for what they wanted.
The salesman gave me some advice - I don't recall the exact words, but it was basically "Friends, please, there is no reason now to be nervous - negotiation is negotiation, and if we agree on a price, we agree fully and with no regrets. If we do not agree, then we do not agree, with no regrets."
I need not feel guilty for paying such a small fee (from my point of view) for such a beautiful carpet - he would not have agreed to the sale if it was not to his benefit in some fashion. I also do not need to mock those who paid 10x what I did for the same carpet - as both us feel we paid a fair price for something we enjoy (and for all I know, the actual cost of buying those things from the source is $20, I have no idea, nor does it matter, unless I feel like flying into the mountains of morocco to go to the source - which I don't)
The home computer market was still very young and unproven.
For contractual projects wouldn't it make sense to know the value of what is going to be produced (more or less) and then negotiate the percentage of it.
Is there anything akin to an agent for a programmer in this situation? In all seriousness, it might not be a bad idea for a business.
Assuming that you can add value to the talent by increasing contractual payoffs, and/or your organization could develop a reputation for excellence and potentially be sought out to find talent for certain jobs.
I'm picturing a mixture of a consultant, and a technical programming.
Any thoughts?
Either party could have also paid him nothing, hired someone else to do it, and been done with it.
I wish the concept of switcher documents had survived in the greater ecology - that would have been sweet.
I really liked how his development cycles are spaced with mini-vacations.
Also, a nice look at the young Gates and Jobs.
...and he's a hardware hacker, too!
Good stuff.
What he described sounded like vanilla intimidation. I could feel the guy squirming in his seat.
Must… resist… RDF…