Lesson from the two-teams/one-client story where a big pharma-adjacent insurance client coerced 2NIT into 'handling it together' with a second subcontractor under threat of firing both. Adam argues that the higher your rate, the larger the share of that rate is compensation for assertiveness — knowing which tasks and arrangements to refuse. They should have refused to review the doomed 200-file PR at all, proposed alternative ways of splitting work, and moved off the overbearing client much faster. As a CEO he also learned to sign more paperwork so he can actually enforce payment.