The cross-recruiting agreement is controversial; at least there's an argument that it should have been OK. But Catmull in particular was involved in the more e

The cross-recruiting agreement is controversial; at least there's an argument that it should have been OK. But Catmull in particular was involved in the more extreme implementations of the deal. In his version, not only did cooperating companies agree not to actively poach, nor to passively extend offers when approached by employees of competitors, but also they agreed to actively report amongst themselves whenever they were approached by employees of competitors. This probably damaged the careers of engineers who were not completely satisfied with their current employer, because as an exec are you going to give a key project to someone who's about to go work for the competition? Maybe even the Catmull version of the wage-fixing scheme has some defenders, but I think there are very few defenders of the Catmull form of the agreement compared to the fraction of HNers who are OK with the milder form that merely instructed recruiters not to actively initiate conversations with employees of competitors.