There are moments in business history that everyone remembers the outcome of, but few people know the story behind. The launch of the original iPhone is one of them. The device itself became iconic almost instantly. The partnership that made it possible — the exclusive agreement between Apple and AT&T that brought it to market — is less well understood, even now.
Negotiating that deal required navigating Apple at its most demanding. Steve Jobs and his team had non-negotiable requirements that turned conventional carrier business logic on its head: control over the device, control over the software, control over the customer relationship. No carrier had agreed to terms like those before. Most wouldn’t. AT&T did — and a significant part of the reason it happened was the executive leading the negotiation.
That executive was Glenn Lurie, then President and CEO of AT&T Mobility. He had spent more than a decade inside the carrier world by the time the Apple conversations began, and he understood something that made him effective in the room: that the deal was not about giving up control. It was about recognizing that the future of mobile was software and experience, not just network coverage, and that a partner capable of building that future was worth the terms they required.
The iPhone launched in 2007. The rest, as they say, is history — though the version of that history that credits the right people is still being written.
His full career, from that negotiation through Glenn Lurie’s leadership of Synchronoss Technologies to his current work investing in the next wave of mobility startups, is detailed at Glenn Lurie.com.
Some deals change an industry. Some executives change it twice.