What is the minimum number of different salaries earned by the nine partners of the firm?

For this question I interpreted it to mean how many different possible arrangements could there be, so I started going through like this: 1. K I F M G J H L N 2. K L N I F M G J H 3. K L I F M G J H N etc... essentially just moving L and N through the sequence since they could go anywhere after K (as long as L was before N). Doing that, I stopped after I realized that there were more than 9 possible combinations. That being said, I realize they're asking for the minimum possible number. My question is, how did the video arrive at that answer? I don't think I am understanding what is being asked at all. Reading through the discussion posts I see that we can't assume it's a straight sequencing game, but shouldn't that only add to the number of possible combinations? What are we supposed to be figuring out? Can someone help me rephrase the question in a different way so I can understand what is being asked?