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I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

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Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#11
post #7

In sales there is a term "know when to stop selling", this story is kind of a variant of that. If you have acceptable terms worked out, stop "selling", stop trying to show or add more value to the deal. Close the deal you have, and then work on any new or additional things.

Selling past the close.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sell_past_the_close

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#12
post #7

In sales there is a term "know when to stop selling", this story is kind of a variant of that. If you have acceptable terms worked out, stop "selling", stop trying to show or add more value to the deal. Close the deal you have, and then work on any new or additional things.

This makes sense. It's disappointing that you're doing your best to sell your value, but instead, you got your chances ruined.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#13
I know pop culture references don't always go over well here, but this reminds me of the Kanye situation at the VMAs. He was likely drunk and attention-seeking, but he was also probably completely incensed when he saw Beyonce fail to win Best Music Video for "Single Ladies". He saw such a misunderstanding of a clearly superior talent and effort that resulted in a qualitatively better result, and he couldn't help but say something, and ended up putting his foot in his mouth.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#14
post #10

Integrity matters. Even if he hadn't gotten a big offer later on, he could still walk away with that. Yes, you can argue that he could have just kept his mouth shut and still honestly taken the Yahoo deal, but he said what he thought was right and gave Yahoo some good judgement about pg's team. I recently interviewed with a number of firms, and the ones that give off the best impression are the ones who ask to integr…

How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?

Telling the truth isn't throwing anyone under the bus. If "they" are better than "us", that's the truth. Personally, I'd have bought the guy's company just because that's the right sort of engineer I want. Having said that, he wasn't under any obligation to tell Jerry anything.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#15
post #10

Integrity matters. Even if he hadn't gotten a big offer later on, he could still walk away with that. Yes, you can argue that he could have just kept his mouth shut and still honestly taken the Yahoo deal, but he said what he thought was right and gave Yahoo some good judgement about pg's team. I recently interviewed with a number of firms, and the ones that give off the best impression are the ones who ask to integr…

How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?

Integrity is about telling the truth (as you see it), not about doing stuff for the benefit of "your own".

In fact the latter can lead to exactly the opposite of integrity.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#16
post #2

Ok, my take away: if I ever want to merge my team with another team, I'll avoid "but that team is better than us" (not that I'll ever be in that situation in the foreseeable future anyway) (pg's answer in this thread: "Whoah, I had no idea about any of this till now...")

That’s not the takeaway. One of the classic rules of selling is “shut up and leave as soon as you have the order.”

It’s not just literal sales call. If your meeting is to get the signed contract, run out the door once it’s in your hand. Don’t push for the P.O. in that moment.

If you have a call with a prospect to set up a meeting, you’ve got that scheduled hang up and prepare for the in person meeting.

Etc etc.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#17
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you have integrity when you throw your own engineers under the bus?

Telling the truth isn't throwing anyone under the bus. If "they" are better than "us", that's the truth. Personally, I'd have bought the guy's company just because that's the right sort of engineer I want. Having said that, he wasn't under any obligation to tell Jerry anything.

He compared engineers he's worked with to engineers he hasn't worked with (Viaweb) and said they were better. How did he know they were better? Is he just better at assessing engineering talent than the rest of us?

You're assuming he knew they were better. Based on all of us (esp. here) not trusting technical interviews to determine engineer quality, I suspect he did not know they were better and was simply trying an off-the-cuff comparison to get Yahoo to acquire both of the companies.

What he really gave was an opinion. It wasn't truth.

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#18

I know pop culture references don't always go over well here, but this reminds me of the Kanye situation at the VMAs. He was likely drunk and attention-seeking, but he was also probably completely incensed when he saw Beyonce fail to win Best Music Video for "Single Ladies". He saw such a misunderstanding of a clearly superior talent and effort that resulted in a qualitatively better result, and he couldn't help but…

As the Tamarians say, “Kanye when the single ladies fell.”

Re: I once killed a $125M deal by being “too honest”

#19
I don’t even see his mistake as being “too honest”, it’s more like he was just being petty. If someone thinks a company sucks but you think it’s great, is it really worth arguing to change their opinion, especially with such an inflammatory statement?
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