Jay taught me to use simplicity as a strategy. He had an uncanny ability to grasp an extremely complex situation and immediately locate the weakness. He always said that if there were twelve steps in a deal, the whole thing depended on just one of them. The others would either work themselves out or were less important.

My takeaway was a whole new respect for simplicity. Development required multiple steps, and every step meant one more chance for something to go wrong. When Jay and I liquidated the Tahoe investment years later, I noticed that we had forgotten something critical, so I called him. “Listen,” I said, “the deal is closed, but I just realized we never drew up a formal partnership agreement between the two of us. If the IRS comes and reviews this thing, we’re going to look like idiots if we don’t have documents.” “Yeah, yeah,” he said, not really interested. That was indicative of Jay. Trust was one of his abiding principles. He’d always bet a lot more on the person than on the deal.

My style of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want

MY STYLE of deal-making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after.

I came into it equipped with these principles because of my Asian-American-studies background, but there was certainly a negotiation that had to take place just for me to get a foot in the door.

You know, when you put out policy, like a 14-point plan? A lot of times in the first hour of negotiation, that 14-point plan goes astray, but you may end up with a better deal. That's the way it works. That's the way really life works. When I do a deal, I don't say, "Oh, here's 14 points." I got out and do it. I don't sit down and talk about 14 points.

I said, “You’ve got to be able to look at the deal and know what it hinges on to know whether it works or not. If you realize that the key component works, then you use the numbers to test it. You don’t do the numbers to find out eight hours later whether it was worth starting.” I’m sure his IQ was higher than mine. But that isn’t how we operate. You have to be able to effectively assess the initial picture and see where the greatest risk is most likely to be, or you’ll spend your life doing numbers just to find out if a deal will work. And all that time lost is time you could have been looking at other opportunities.

Gentlemen, I’ve done many deals in my lifetime and through that process, I’ve developed a methodology, a way of doing things, a philosophy if you will. Within that philosophy, I have certain beliefs. I believe in artificial deadlines. I believe in playing one against the other. I believe in doing everything and anything short of illegal or immoral to get the damned deal done.

I found it exhilarating to make the disparate and miscellaneous details presented in the investigation report something coherent, to organize them in accordance with the requirements of law as a musician organizes notes in accordance with the requirements of sonata form. Trying the case, I'd given shape to the chaos of reality, turned it into drama, with a plot, characters, dialogue, a climax, and a denouement, a cunning representation in the courtroom of the transaction outside the courtroom which constituted the subject matter of the case.

To really understand how this stuff works, I knew I had to dig deeper. So I asked myself, How many of the following questions can be resolved by turning to your corporate goals or mission statement? Is that phone call so important I need to return it today, or can it wait till tomorrow? Can I ask for a raise before my annual review? Is the quality of this document good enough or should I keep working on it? Do I have to be on time for that meeting? Should I stay at the Four Seasons or the Red Roof Inn? When I negotiate this contract, what’s more important: the price or the partnership? Should I point out what my peers do wrong, or what they do right? Should I go home at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m.? How hard do I need to study the competition? Should we discuss the color of this new product for five minutes or thirty hours? If I know something is badly broken in the company, should I say something? Whom should I tell? Is winning more important than ethics?

Small deals rely on promises and contracts. Big deals rely on alignment and trust.

Whenever there was a concept or learning technique that I related to in a manner too abstract to convey, I forced myself to break it down into the incremental steps with which I got there.

Smart partners negotiate fair deals because they know that lopsided deals are fragile and that most value accumulates in long term trust relationships.

You can tell a lot about a potential partner by their opening offer.

He looked at me soberly and said: “Make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no.” I nodded, wrote it down, underlined it, and circled it. And with that, my entire worldview of selling was transformed. My mind began racing. I didn't have to be skilled . . . or even any good. I just had to come up with things that anyone would say yes to.