Steve Jobs’ ability to convince and negotiate with others is almost unparalleled in the tech industry, and a recent anecdote about how Apple’s then-CEO got AT&T to agree to a revenue share deal just is another example of Jobs’ skills as an excellent negotiator.

The back story comes via Raj Aggarwal, a former telecommunications consultant for Adventis, who worked with Jobs on the AT&T deal from 2005. When the iPhone launched in 2007 with AT&T as the exclusive carrier, the company agreed to a revenue sharing deal that gave Apple a $10 cut on each iPhone’s monthly bill.

Aggarwal says that one of the reasons Jobs got AT&T on board with these next to impossible terms was his personal involvement in the finest of details of the iPhone, rather than delegating these tasks to other Apple execs:

“Jobs met with the CEOs of each carrier. I was struck by the hands-on nature and his desire to make his mark on everything the company was doing. He got deeply involved in the details he cared about. He made it happen.”

[…]

“In one meeting in the conference room with Jobs, he was annoyed that AT&T was spending too much time worrying about the risks of the deal. So he said, ‘You know what we should do to stop them from complaining? We should write AT&T a check for $1 billion and if the deal doesn’t work out, they can keep the money. Let’s give them the $1 billion [Apple had $5 billion in cash at the time] and shut them the hell up.’”

Jobs envisioned a future where iPhone users could get unlimited voice, data, and SMS for $50 a month, saying that Apple should “go after something unreasonable that no one has been willing to accept.”

Of course agreeing to Steve Jobs’ “impossible” terms worked out pretty well for AT&T, who had exclusive rights to carry the iPhone in the U.S. till 2010. Average revenue per user (ARPU) was $95 on AT&T as compared to other carrier’s paltry $50.