How to Negotiate
When I was reading Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs it suddenly brought back memories of the FBI repeatedly hitting the buzzer for my apartment rather forcefully ten years ago. Isaacson mentions that Steve Jobs and Dr. Larry Brilliant were best friends. Flashback to ten years ago, Larry Brilliant calls the FBI and tells them I might know something about where Osama Bin Laden keeps his money. True story.
The next thing I know, someone is ringing my buzzer, “The police! We need to come up.” Then when we let them in (after I briefly considered running down the back staircase) they flashed their badges “FBI”. They said, “we had to say “police” because we didn’t want to scare anyone on the street by saying ‘FBI’. “
Uhhh. Do you really think that is the difference between inducing fear and creating a feeling of calm?
Let’s hold off on that for a second. Three other things come to mind, maybe four, when I think of Larry Brilliant...