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I’m sure it’s also about setting a precedent to current and future employees regarding leaving and starting new companies. What VC wants to spend their early m

I’m sure it’s also about setting a precedent to current and future employees regarding leaving and starting new companies. What VC wants to spend their early money on lawsuits, even if you’ll (eventually) win?

jcadam 7y ago
It's also sending a message to prospective employees to not take a job with Apple.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  Most employees will not become entrepreneurs so I doubt it will factor much into the decision whether or not to work for Apple. Almost all employers in the US have that kind of non-compete clause and they are enforced more often than you would think, this is just making headlines because it involves a hot startup and corporate giant.
  - sroussey 7y ago
    It’s more a statement that Apple owns its employees.
  - not2b 7y ago
    In California non-compete agreements are severely restricted and much less enforceable, and that's one major reason Silicon Valley is in California and not elsewhere, as so many semiconductor companies were started by people jumping ship. That's one reason why, for anyone who wants to get some experience in a major company but has dreams of eventually starting their own company, California may be a better place to be despite the high cost of living.
    - filmgirlcw 7y ago
      Counterpoint: the anti-poaching agreements between Apple, Google, and others [1] shows that other than better non-compete statutes, SV isn’t any better than any other place, especially if the largest employers want to collude to prevent hiring one another’s employees. It’s unhelpful to fall into the trap of thinking the Valley is any better than any other place. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...
      - greglindahl 7y ago
        An illegal agreement that ended in 2009 is a poor proof of your point.
        sneak 7y ago
        It is unreasonable to believe that they stopped simply because of that minor slap on the wrist. I’m sure they’re just much more careful now; tens of billions of dollars are on the line.
        not2b 7y ago
        Team leaders at the big companies now feel far more freedom to try to recruit people from big competitors, thanks in part to the poaching agreement being found to be illegal. So it did matter. You're launching a big project, you don't have the needed expertise in house, and a guy/gal you know who works for OtherBigFAANG would be a good fit. You call them. Back when the poaching agreement was in effect, HR would tell you you can't hire them. Now they won't, in fact, they can't.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    Non-compete clauses are null and void in California. That doesn't mean they're not in the contracts and that doesn't mean that something non-compete-ish clause-ish isn't in there. Still I think this is a bad look for Apple.
    - singlow 7y ago
      Not null and void. But they are limited in scope.
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Eh, Apple has always been a big risk as an employee. They don't pay very well and they take secrecy (and the accompanying legal paperwork) very seriously. None of this is new; Apple has always been like this (even in the Jobs 1.0 days).
  - kbrackbill 7y ago
    This has always confused me. I don't understand why anyone works for Apple (or Amazon for that matter). If you're already selling your soul to big tech why not just go to Facebook or whatever and get paid more?
    - kick 7y ago
      Apple is generally less immoral than Facebook and Amazon. Facebook is generally less immoral than Amazon, too, but Amazon has better PR.
      - mensetmanusman 7y ago
        ? Apple is beholden to China more than the other two.
        kick 7y ago
        Amazon has some of the worst working conditions and highest injury rates in the country for domestic workers that aren't engineers. https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-amazons-own-numbers-reveal-staggering-injury-1840025032 https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-amazons-own-numbers-reveal-sta... (independent) https://www.revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles/ (joint article with The Atlantic) I'm not stating that Apple is good (just look at Foxconn suicide rates as proof that it's an evil company), but it's generally speaking the lesser of three evils here.
        hyperbovine 7y ago
        This isn't meant to excuse any bad behavior, but how many "domestic workers that aren't engineers" do they employ versus the rest of FAANG, and in what roles? If a huge portion of your business consists of plucking things off of shelves in warehouses then yes, of course you're going to have a higher rate of injury than the guy at Google whose job it is to wheel in new kegs of kombucha every week.
freehunter 7y ago
Which is silly... the right approach is to let employees leave and start their own companies, take their own risks, fail or succeed on their own. And if they succeed, you buy them and integrate them back into the fold. If they fail, you didn't take the risk of failure on your own. Provided they didn't take insider knowledge and intellectual property with them, of course.
- devicetray0 7y ago
  > Provided they didn't take insider knowledge and intellectual property with them, of course. And that is exactly what Apple's legal filing claims...
  - ohazi 7y ago
    Apparently they're not making a trade secrets theft claim, which seems a little unusual for a case like this.
  - not2b 7y ago
    Nope: every decent technical employee acquires insider knowledge, and companies don't have the right to enslave people because of that knowledge. The laws governing this differ from state to state, and California in particular gives employees more protection from restrictive contracts than other states.
- jakobegger 7y ago
  If you put it this way, it sounds sensible. But as soon as VC money is involved it gets a bit fishy. Say you assembled a great team of specialists. It cost you a lot of effort, time and money to hire all these really great people. Then someone comes along with a wad of cash and convinces a bunch of those people to all quit and work on a secret project. After they come out of stealth mode, it becomes clear they worked on the same thing as they did at Apple, only now Apple has to pay $250 million dollar to get the results of the work of the team that they had put a lot of effort into recruiting in the first place...
  - 7y ago

jcadam 7y ago

It's also sending a message to prospective employees to not take a job with Apple.

rpiguy 7y ago
Most employees will not become entrepreneurs so I doubt it will factor much into the decision whether or not to work for Apple. Almost all employers in the US have that kind of non-compete clause and they are enforced more often than you would think, this is just making headlines because it involves a hot startup and corporate giant.
- sroussey 7y ago
  It’s more a statement that Apple owns its employees.
- not2b 7y ago
  In California non-compete agreements are severely restricted and much less enforceable, and that's one major reason Silicon Valley is in California and not elsewhere, as so many semiconductor companies were started by people jumping ship. That's one reason why, for anyone who wants to get some experience in a major company but has dreams of eventually starting their own company, California may be a better place to be despite the high cost of living.
  - filmgirlcw 7y ago
    Counterpoint: the anti-poaching agreements between Apple, Google, and others [1] shows that other than better non-compete statutes, SV isn’t any better than any other place, especially if the largest employers want to collude to prevent hiring one another’s employees. It’s unhelpful to fall into the trap of thinking the Valley is any better than any other place. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      An illegal agreement that ended in 2009 is a poor proof of your point.
      - sneak 7y ago
        It is unreasonable to believe that they stopped simply because of that minor slap on the wrist. I’m sure they’re just much more careful now; tens of billions of dollars are on the line.
        not2b 7y ago
        Team leaders at the big companies now feel far more freedom to try to recruit people from big competitors, thanks in part to the poaching agreement being found to be illegal. So it did matter. You're launching a big project, you don't have the needed expertise in house, and a guy/gal you know who works for OtherBigFAANG would be a good fit. You call them. Back when the poaching agreement was in effect, HR would tell you you can't hire them. Now they won't, in fact, they can't.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Non-compete clauses are null and void in California. That doesn't mean they're not in the contracts and that doesn't mean that something non-compete-ish clause-ish isn't in there. Still I think this is a bad look for Apple.
  - singlow 7y ago
    Not null and void. But they are limited in scope.
wayoutthere 7y ago
Eh, Apple has always been a big risk as an employee. They don't pay very well and they take secrecy (and the accompanying legal paperwork) very seriously. None of this is new; Apple has always been like this (even in the Jobs 1.0 days).
- kbrackbill 7y ago
  This has always confused me. I don't understand why anyone works for Apple (or Amazon for that matter). If you're already selling your soul to big tech why not just go to Facebook or whatever and get paid more?
  - kick 7y ago
    Apple is generally less immoral than Facebook and Amazon. Facebook is generally less immoral than Amazon, too, but Amazon has better PR.
    - mensetmanusman 7y ago
      ? Apple is beholden to China more than the other two.
      - kick 7y ago
        Amazon has some of the worst working conditions and highest injury rates in the country for domestic workers that aren't engineers. https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-amazons-own-numbers-reveal-staggering-injury-1840025032 https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-amazons-own-numbers-reveal-sta... (independent) https://www.revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles/ (joint article with The Atlantic) I'm not stating that Apple is good (just look at Foxconn suicide rates as proof that it's an evil company), but it's generally speaking the lesser of three evils here.
        hyperbovine 7y ago
        This isn't meant to excuse any bad behavior, but how many "domestic workers that aren't engineers" do they employ versus the rest of FAANG, and in what roles? If a huge portion of your business consists of plucking things off of shelves in warehouses then yes, of course you're going to have a higher rate of injury than the guy at Google whose job it is to wheel in new kegs of kombucha every week.

freehunter 7y ago

Which is silly... the right approach is to let employees leave and start their own companies, take their own risks, fail or succeed on their own. And if they succeed, you buy them and integrate them back into the fold. If they fail, you didn't take the risk of failure on your own. Provided they didn't take insider knowledge and intellectual property with them, of course.

devicetray0 7y ago
> Provided they didn't take insider knowledge and intellectual property with them, of course. And that is exactly what Apple's legal filing claims...
- ohazi 7y ago
  Apparently they're not making a trade secrets theft claim, which seems a little unusual for a case like this.
- not2b 7y ago
  Nope: every decent technical employee acquires insider knowledge, and companies don't have the right to enslave people because of that knowledge. The laws governing this differ from state to state, and California in particular gives employees more protection from restrictive contracts than other states.
jakobegger 7y ago
If you put it this way, it sounds sensible. But as soon as VC money is involved it gets a bit fishy. Say you assembled a great team of specialists. It cost you a lot of effort, time and money to hire all these really great people. Then someone comes along with a wad of cash and convinces a bunch of those people to all quit and work on a secret project. After they come out of stealth mode, it becomes clear they worked on the same thing as they did at Apple, only now Apple has to pay $250 million dollar to get the results of the work of the team that they had put a lot of effort into recruiting in the first place...
- 7y ago