You know what we should do to stop them from complaining? We should write AT&T a check for $1 billion and if the deal doesn’t work out, they can keep the money. Let’s give them the $1 billion [Apple had $5 billion in cash at the time] and shut them the hell up.
Steve Jobs, talking to telecommunication consultant Raj Aggarwal about how he was annoyed that AT&T was spending too much time worrying about the risks of the deal he was negotiating with them before the first iPhone came out…
This quote is part of an interesting Forbes article where consultant Raj Aggarwal recounts how AT&T agreed to an unprecedented revenue sharing agreement with Apple thanks to Steve Jobs’ ruthless negotiation skills.