"Don't argue with me. $100,000 is fair, and you know it."

This story inspired me tonight: reading about how he didn't know if it would work or not, and how he fixed bugs as they arose is true hacking style. And it's definitely a way to get things done. So that's what I did tonight, and made a ton of progress; just hounding down and stomping on bugs mercilessly.<p>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.

"Well, I think you are. How long do you think it will take to do this project? A month or two? I think a really good programmer like you could get it done in less than two months."<p>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".<p>Always a sign for me that things aren't going to go well.

Both Jobs and Gates tried to snare him with the same fallacy. It was easy for him to do because he was very good/had insider knowledge so he shouldn't be paid that much for it. Wrong.<p>What really mattered was how much it was worth to Microsoft or Apple and <i>especially</i> 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?

When he started on about the key combinations at the end, I was convinced he was about to give us the origin of Ctrl-Alt-Del.

I feel like he really dropped the ball on negotiating the sale. It seems like he didn't make any counters, and didn't use their competing interest to reap a higher price.<p>I was expecting at least a cease and desist or lawsuit would be involved.

That's a great story. I'm not sure how many people can say they got a hard sell like that from both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for one piece of software...

Probably my favourite 'Folklore' story (though I've by no means read them all) - I especially like the extra $50K kicker when Switcher was sold, something Jobs "swore they would never do".

This is what the Switcher looked like: <a href="http://school.anhb.uwa.edu.au/personalpages/kwessen/web/stories/EarlyMacStories.html#multitasking" rel="nofollow">http://school.anhb.uwa.edu.au/personalpages/kwessen/web/stor...</a>

Wow, just wow. I am amazed by two things 1) How much a jerk both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are and 2) How young the engineers were that started all this...

&#62; ""But I don't want you taking advantage of this situation. I'm not going to allow you to take advantage of Apple."<p>&#62; "What do you mean?" I asked him, genuinely puzzled.<p>&#62; "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.""<p>Wow... that makes me think a whole lot less of Steve Jobs.<p>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.

With inflation, that's only doubled: <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100%2C000+1984+%3D" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24100%2C000+1984+%3D</a>

It seemed like he had an incredible product he could have sold for more in my opinion.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>I'm picturing a mixture of a consultant, and a technical programming.<p>Any thoughts?

Did anyone else think the story would end with the key combination being changed to "Ctrl+alt+delete"?

Well, 100k is better than 40k

The conversation with Bill Gates in his office reads like something out of an Ayn Rand novel. This is awesome.

Damn, look at this: "... including a simple UI for selecting applications and 'Switcher Documents' for remembering sets of related applications."<p>I wish the concept of switcher documents had survived in the greater ecology - that would have been sweet.

If this isn't inspiring to "predict the future by inventing it", I don't know what is.

Excellent story. Anyone remember DESQview for DOS?<p>I really liked how his development cycles are spaced with mini-vacations.<p>Also, a nice look at the young Gates and Jobs.<p>...and he's a hardware hacker, too!<p>Good stuff.

I wonder if he'd gone with the single-heap-for-all-apps idea, whether or not it would have encouraged program interoperability?

When it got to the part where Andy was talking to Jobs and Jobs was trying to close a deal to buy Switcher, I could almost hear the <i>click</i> of Steve's Reality Distortion Field turning on. Also pictured him doing the hand-waving motion Kenobi did in Star Wars when doing the Jedi mind trick on stormtroopers. "These are not the droids you're looking for. One hundred thousand credits. The Jedi will not be taken advantage of. This little one is not worth your trouble."

Interesting to see the different approaches taken by Gates and Jobs. Gates: flattery, Jobs: implied threats.

great story. great insight into Jobs and Gates too, giving a glimpse of both in action in the same era, and dealing with the same issue.