Founders should not lead the negotiations they are closest to, because closeness makes them emotional and causes mistakes. Matthias Schranner, FBI-trained hostage negotiator, told the DEALMACHER podcast he never negotiates his own prices. You can stay in the room, but bring someone whose name is not on the outcome to carry the negotiation.
One of my most recent guests on the DEALMACHER podcast was the best negotiator I’ve ever had on the show. And the first thing he told me was that he doesn’t negotiate – not the deals that matter to him personally.
Matthias Schranner spent 17 years with the police, six of them undercover, then worked as an FBI-trained hostage negotiator. Today he advises corporations, governments and the United Nations across more than 40 countries, and Forbes has called him one of the best negotiators in the world.
Inside his own company, he has one rule he calls “law, almost religion”: he never negotiates his own prices. Someone else does.
The reasoning is uncomfortable because it’s true. “The closer I am to the object of the negotiation, the more emotional I get – and the more mistakes I make.” Distance is not detachment. Distance is what keeps your judgment intact when the stakes are personal.
He has a simple test for it. Any of us could negotiate a colleague’s salary without breaking a sweat. We’d be calm, structured, almost surgical. Now negotiate your own. Suddenly it’s not about the number. It’s about recognition, fairness, being seen. The moment the deal becomes about you, you stop playing well.
This is the part most operators get backwards. We assume the person with the most at stake should sit in the chair, because they care the most and know the most. Schranner’s experience says the opposite: the person with the most at stake is exactly the person whose emotions will leak into the room. Caring more makes you worse, not better.
It shows up everywhere the stakes are high and the object is personal. The founder selling the company they built. The CEO renegotiating a partnership they championed. The deal where your identity is quietly tied to the outcome. In each case the instinct is to lead the conversation yourself. And in each case that instinct is the risk.
So what do you actually do?
You can stay in the room – but you’re not alone. Bring someone whose name isn’t on the outcome. Someone who can say the hard number, sit through the silence, and not flinch when the other side pushes. Schranner’s point isn’t that you disappear. It’s that the person carrying the emotional weight shouldn’t also be the one carrying the negotiation.
And if there’s no one? Then your own vanity becomes the most expensive person in the room. The work, then, is to build people around you who can negotiate on your behalf before you need them to – not to convince yourself you’ll be the exception under pressure.
There’s a deeper idea underneath all of this. Schranner doesn’t see negotiation as a fight you win by wanting it more. He sees it as a game with patterns – one you play better from a small, deliberate distance. The professionals he trains aren’t the loudest people in the room. They’re the calmest. Often the ones who care visibly less in the moment, because they’ve structurally removed themselves from the part of the deal that would make them careless.
The hardest deals of your career will be the ones you’re closest to. That’s precisely why they’re the ones you shouldn’t be running alone.
If a negotiation that really matters is coming up, ask yourself one question before you walk in: am I the right person to be saying these numbers out loud – or just the most attached?
The full conversation with Matthias Schranner – hostage negotiations, the watch on his wrist, and how he reads the other side – is here: www.id.vc/dealmacher-podcast
Frequently asked questions
Why should founders not negotiate their own deals?
The closer you are to the object of the negotiation, the more emotional you get and the more mistakes you make. The person with the most at stake is exactly the person whose emotions will leak into the room.
Does Matthias Schranner negotiate his own prices?
No. Inside his own company he has a rule he calls “law, almost religion”: he never negotiates his own prices. Someone else does.
Who should negotiate when the stakes are personal?
Someone whose name is not on the outcome, who can say the hard number, sit through the silence and not flinch when the other side pushes. You can stay in the room, but you should not carry the negotiation alone.
What if a founder has no one to negotiate for them?
Then your own vanity becomes the most expensive person in the room. The work is to build people around you who can negotiate on your behalf before you need them.
