Marc’s life revolves around people, innovation, sales and negotiations, deals, and family. His Maxims were born from lived-life experience. They’re designed as short-hand principles to facilitate thinking; not rules to memorize and mechanically apply.
On Business Negotiations
- People (not spreadsheets) are the epicenter of every deal.
- Propinquity counts.
- Negotiating is Theater with Consequences and Results.
- Deals (like the universe) tend toward entropy.
- The Seller’s Mantra is Certainty and Confidentiality.
- Exploration is not Commitment.
- An Expectation Unarticulated is a Disappointment Guaranteed.
- Time is the invisible but palpable enemy.
- God gave us one mouth and two ears; the ratio wasn’t an accident.
- It’s better to have some percentage of something than 100% of nothing.
On Startups
- Startups are time, cash, and emotion vampires.
- Cash is a proxy for time; time is a proxy for opportunity.
- When people are paying tulip bulb prices, and you own tulip bulbs, you should sell them.
- Being a Founder is a fact; not a job description.
- All deals are personal, only Founders are more so.
On Life
- There are so many ways to be human.
- Never break a promise to your kid.
- In the end time and gravity win.
Read more Morgenstern’s Maxims featured in The Soul of the Deal