6 ms·

Just because a criminal commits a crime and gets away with it, and they still had to pay millions in settlement, does not mean that it's any less legal to do it

by devoply 10y ago

Just because a criminal commits a crime and gets away with it, and they still had to pay millions in settlement, does not mean that it's any less legal to do it. If you are not Apple, Google, et. al. that can afford millions of dollars in penalties, then I suggest you don't break the law. The 4 tech giants paid 345 million in fines for this.

Hydraulix989 10y ago
At the time, I'm sure that the math worked out for each party involved though -- $80M per company sounds a lot less than the cost of losing crucial staff members to poaching, that's actually less than the cost of most of their real acquisitions (remember, there is lost knowledge, mindshare, and costs associated with re-hiring and training -- I've heard that it costs upwards of $100k to hire a single engineer at a big company, and then it can take up to a year for them to ramp up depending on the scope of the project that they're working on), AND there's a HUGE cost if you have to pay every single engineer a substantially higher salary. You can't just slot in a new replacement body like changing a tire and then immediately start driving away full throttle whenever you lose a key engineer. Our jobs are so nuanced, and there's a ton of arcane internal knowledge that each person has that took a ton of time to build up and wasn't ever documented (a lot of the most valuable IP doesn't ever leave peoples' heads). Not to mention, there are specialized "your company only" skills and human relationships that people develop that are only applicable to YOUR company that also took a lot of time and experience to build up. This is why I actually think it is worthwhile for HR to always give a counter-offer whenever an engineer decides to leave. Plus, they thought they could get away with it. On a parting note, calling Steve Jobs a criminal is certainly a debatable accusation 'round these parts.

by devoply 10y ago

Hydraulix989 10y ago

At the time, I'm sure that the math worked out for each party involved though -- $80M per company sounds a lot less than the cost of losing crucial staff members to poaching, that's actually less than the cost of most of their real acquisitions (remember, there is lost knowledge, mindshare, and costs associated with re-hiring and training -- I've heard that it costs upwards of $100k to hire a single engineer at a big company, and then it can take up to a year for them to ramp up depending on the scope of the project that they're working on), AND there's a HUGE cost if you have to pay every single engineer a substantially higher salary. You can't just slot in a new replacement body like changing a tire and then immediately start driving away full throttle whenever you lose a key engineer. Our jobs are so nuanced, and there's a ton of arcane internal knowledge that each person has that took a ton of time to build up and wasn't ever documented (a lot of the most valuable IP doesn't ever leave peoples' heads). Not to mention, there are specialized "your company only" skills and human relationships that people develop that are only applicable to YOUR company that also took a lot of time and experience to build up. This is why I actually think it is worthwhile for HR to always give a counter-offer whenever an engineer decides to leave. Plus, they thought they could get away with it. On a parting note, calling Steve Jobs a criminal is certainly a debatable accusation 'round these parts.