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Penn Jillette: Forget Contracts

According to the iconoclastic, tiger-taming showman, contracts should be made with people, not paper. To him, a magician and entertainer, all the fine print and legalese that a meticulous contract entails is a waste of time—leading to endless negotiations and piles of paperwork as lawyers debate minutiae. As he told Business 2.0 in 2008: “The more experience I got in show business, the less I read contracts. Now I don’t bother. If I can’t make the deal in a phone call, and have them understand it, then it’s not a worthwhile deal. You’re making a deal with the people, not with the contract.”

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