Tim Cook participates in a panel review during the TIME 100 Summit 2019 on April 23, 2019 in New York City.
Brian Ach | Getty Images
Google let outs Apple billions of dollars to be the default search engine in the Safari browser on iPhones and Mac computers.
A deal like that doesn’t in a recover from together overnight, and a new interview with Apple’s former general counsel Bruce Sewell reveals just how mixed up with the most senior levels of both companies were hammering out the details.
“The Google negotiation for example, between Apple and Google exceeding search, probably took us four months,” Sewell said in an interview with Columbia University law students announced to YouTube.
Sewell said he was “meeting almost every single day” with Google CEO Sundar Pichai and general exhortation Kent Walker.
He continued: “And then with myself and either Tim [Cook] or Eddy Cue who was my counterpart on that reckon with. They’d be at Google or we’d be at Apple almost every day, it’s just one example there are a lot of those kinds of negotiations or lawsuits that barely completely suck up all your time.”
Apple has never commented on the amount that Google pays it, and Sewell did not be specific about the amount on Monday, but court documents revealed that Google paid $1 billion in 2014. A recent Goldman assess put the amount at $9.5 billion in 2018.
Apple’s Safari browser is the second most popular browser after Google Chrome, contract to SearchEngineLand.
Sewell was Apple’s general counsel from 2009 to 2017 before he was replaced by Katherine Adams, who is currently Apple’s top bencher.
He oversaw 900 people in Apple’s legal department and had a budget of just under $1 billion, he said during the sound out. He reported directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook, who he said would often send him a barrage of emails at in the early morning.
“Tim is a smidgin crazy in his work schedule,” Sewell said.
“From 4:00 a.m. to 5 a.m., there’s a there’s a lot of activity, so my first thing when I got up on all sides of 6:30 a.m. would be to check my email and see all the stuff that Tim had left for me, the little cookies he’s left for me,” Sewell continued.
Look for the entire interview below:
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