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Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees

• Maxious 15y ago
  "If a Pixar employee applies to Intel without being recruited by Intel, contact Pat Gelsinger and explain to him a Pixar employee (provide the candidates name) has applied to Intel without being recruited and he will contact the CEO of Pixar for approval to hire" Scary.
  • mjwalshe 15y ago
    yes that goes well beyond non poaching
  • coffee 15y ago
    I'm surprised that people in these threads say "I'm not at all surprised by this behavior" - It's a sad state of affairs when we, as employees, wholly expect this behavior between the few leading companies in this area.
    • codeonfire 15y ago
      We have to work among the group of people for which this behavior is standard procedure. We are reminded daily of how insane, sociopathic, and child-like middle managers can be and that it only gets worse (far worse) the further up the chain. If I were working at a place where someone didn't expect this behavior I would think that person was very inexperienced. If I found a company where management didn't behave like this, maybe because it is relatively young, I would expect them to start misbehaving within a few years as the sociopaths start working their way into the corporate structure.
      • coffee 15y ago
        I'm sorry, I just have a problem with this mentality. Things are fucked up, so we should expect it to continue being fucked up, and now that it is expected, we shall deem it acceptable... > It's a sad state of affairs when we, as employees, wholly expect this behavior...
        • codeonfire 15y ago
          Just because something is expected doesn't mean that it is acceptable. On the contrary, if someone fucks up, like they always do, and you EXPECT it, you can act on it. In this case, thousands of people are about to have a payday because some evil execs who probably don't even know how email works fucked up. Someone, somewhere expected it, got the evidence nailed down, and went after them. After this settles, there's going to be lots of people (and many lawyers) expecting this behavior and actively looking for it.
          • coffee 15y ago
            hmmm... Well, this isn't an attack against you personally, or a tit-for-tat sort of comment, but... > We have to work among the group of people for which this behavior is standard procedure. You ARE saying that this is acceptable, since "we have to" work among them, and I just don't agree :)
            • codeonfire 15y ago
              Well, the alternative is homelessness and early death.
              • spacemanaki 15y ago
                Surely there are other alternatives than that... someone working for one of these tech giants has a lot of options other than working for another tech giant. Like starting her own company.
              • coffee 15y ago
                I believe comments like this is why I'm constantly finding disagreement with what you say. You have a very hard slant. Personally, I've found, and seen others having, a wide array of alternatives available to them. If "we" don't show that this behavior is wrong, through our actions, it will continue...
                • 15y ago
  • SilasX 15y ago
    Yeah. These corporations dealing with employees sound more like pimps dealing with their "ho"s.
• benologist 15y ago
  Summary of http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-apple-lawsuit-idUSTRE80Q27420120127 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-apple-lawsuit-i... Kind of ironic that The AOL Way was supposed to be the reason The Verge guys left to start a new blog. It looks like the only thing they were tired of was Engadget's layout. The AOL Way doesn't deserve traffic.
  • natrius 15y ago
    The Verge article consists almost entirely of quotes from the source document. They did nothing wrong here.
• bwarp 15y ago
  This is 100% why you shouldn't work for a big corporation. You're a resource rather than an employee.
  • vacri 15y ago
    Same in small companies. In our company of 14 people, my last HR meeting had the officer dismissing my mention of doing 30-60 minutes unpaid daily overtime as 'it's a small company, that happens'. They were trying to nail me into a contract doing even more unpaid work: 'Sometimes that happens in a small company' -> 'Yes, I do the in-house IT, and it's part of the job, but I'm letting you know that it's every day' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens' -> 'Every day is 'sometimes'?' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens...'. The other great comment was 'You have to expect a little overtime when you're on a good salary'. My salary is right on the national average wage - neither good nor bad by definition.
    • jeremymcanally 15y ago
      ...you have HR meetings in a company of 14? It sounds like the culture is what's causing that, not the company size. I've worked in companies of 50 that don't have "HR" people (of course, they have people who cut checks, etc. but they didn't create and enforce crazy policies like that!).
      • vacri 15y ago
        We have an HR 'consultant' that does half a day a week
    • jbae29 15y ago
      This should just depend on whether you're an exempt or non exempt employee. Most IT professionals are classified as exempt meaning they do not qualify for overtime. If you're paid hourly, or work as a contractor, you should be paid for all your hours.
      • vacri 15y ago
• m__ 15y ago
  This seems like a pretty poor strategy for the involved companies. 1) It makes other companies (not involved in the agreement) more attractive, as their salaries will be closer to the salaries offered by the companies involved in the cartel. 2) This means that the pool of potential employees is reduced due the agreement, which means that the companies involved in the cartel will have to bear higher recruiting costs. 3) These recruiting costs make a mistake in hiring more costly. It gets harder to "test" employees and let them go when they are a bad fit, because expenditures from your HR budget are shifted to the front (on the promise of savings down the line). 4) Further, when the cartel breaks (as it will, each company has an incentive to cheat on the other members) the payoff of this inflated recruiting "investment" disappears.
  • asmithmd1 15y ago
    Yes the free market can work - if the employee knows to discount an offer from one of the cartel companies because they will not be able to move to another cartel member.
    • meric 15y ago
      A hiring cartel basically acts like super-duper large company doesn't it? So by that logic we would discount offers from large companies compared to ones from smaller companies. Oh wait, we do, as large company pay > startup pay. ;) But is it for this reason?!
  • sycren 15y ago
    Perhaps for some small part this is why Facebook managed to poach from Google so successfully..
• asmithmd1 15y ago
  imagine how fast Congress would get involved if something like this were revealed to exist between basketball or football teams for free agents. If these companies don't want employees to leave they are free to sign long term contracts to lock them up. This is plainly illegal
  • jballanc 15y ago
    The difference, of course, is that basketball and football players have unions, and therefore can use collective bargaining to force the establishment of contracts. Luckily (for software executives), I don't think we have to worry about software engineers forming a union...
  • malandrew 15y ago
    "Hire slow. Fire fast." Would fast firing even be possible with long-term contracts? Firing fast isn't something that is done for the sake of saving money. It is done for the sake of avoiding the damaging effects of keeping someone on the team that hurts the productivity of the other team members.
    • asmithmd1 15y ago
      You have never heard of a football player being cut from a team? Or being offered a one year contract? I am saying there are legal ways to prevent an employee from leaving a company but it costs the company money to have that privilege.
      • malandrew 15y ago
        One year is a long time to have someone on a team that turns out to be a wrong hire. You normally figure out that someone isn't working out within the first 1-3 months. I've made a wrong hire before and it impacted the work of 5 other people. I and any other manager has an obligation to get rid of that one person if they are having a net negative effect on the work of others. To do otherwise would be a failure in my responsibilities to others on the team. It's not like a manager can just "bench" an employee that isn't working out for them. What would make sense, especially in a market where there is a crunch for talent is a guarantee from the company that if it doesn't work out, that the applicant, would get 1-2 months salary after being cut to look for another place to work. (Also, to the person who down voted me: This is HN, not Reddit. You don't down vote because you disagree with what was said. You down vote them because their detracting from the conversation, such as trolling.)
• josefresco 15y ago
  I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies. This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • omonra 15y ago
    I'm tired of people bringing up 'don't do evil' EVERY time Google does something they dislike. New search results using personal targeting - EVIL! Anti-poaching agreement with Apple - EVIL! Closed down a bagel cafe next to my cubicle - EVIL! Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more selective in its application? This is turning into another version of the Godwin's law - whereby it only takes so long before Google is accused of being evil (by breaking the not-be-evil pledge).
    • va_coder 15y ago
      No. The "do no evil" was a way of saying let's not be like Microsoft and allow ourself to engage in unfair business practices. Google is now like Microsoft.
      • omonra 15y ago
        "That's like..your opinion, man" :) So if someone wants to say that Google is becoming like MSFT - say that (incidentally regarding MST being evil I recently read this: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/antitrust_kills.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/01/antitrust_kills....) But I think that we should not dilute the definition of Evil.
        • rooshdi 15y ago
• ypcx 15y ago
  To hell with this "nobody will know so let's do this" mentality - it's twenty fucking twelve in case you haven't noticed, the year when the "all seeing eye" becomes public property.
• timkeller 15y ago
  "Please make a public example of this termination with the group." Yikes. Sounds positively medieval.
  • lawnchair_larry 15y ago
    That quote stood out for me as well. I now have an association with "Shona Brown" and evil sociopath. What a sick woman.
• neves 15y ago
  The problem is not just that the employees have less options where to find a job. The real problem is that the employees don't know about the agreement! If I work at Pixar and prospect Intel for a job, they will tell my boss and my carreer at Pixar will be messed for ever. I had a boss that liked to fire employees who he knew were searching for jobs elsewhere. He would announce in job sites good offers asking for candidates with the skills used in his company, and didn't disclosed the company name. When he got answers from his own employees, he would fire them in the best opportunity. A great way to create a culture of fear.
  • rapind 15y ago
    I would have applied to one writing "I'm interested in working for you because my current boss is a douchebag who posts fake jobs to try and get us to apply to them."
  • lrobb 15y ago
    Not too uncommon... and why people should never apply if the poster uses an anonymous address (ala craigslist).
  • msg 15y ago
    So who stayed to work for that boss?
    • gsharm 15y ago
      Exactly. That's the real problem.
    • neves 15y ago
      He and his wife. Serious. In the two years I worked there it had a turnover rate of 400%.
• nyellin 15y ago
  Everyone is commenting on the "no evil" thing, so I want to give my take on that. Yes, companies are large entities that maximize shareholder profit and therefore talking about "good companies" or "bad companies" is meaningless. But I always understood the "no evil" slogan to be accepting of that. To me, "do no evil" was the mentality that no matter how corporate the company may become, the humans who are part of it wont let anything blatantly horrible happen. The company might become a giant corporate machine, but the human cogs will always retain enough power to stop horrible mistakes. Increasingly, I'm starting to believe that every company mutates into the same corporate mass given enough time. Pick a large corporation with dirty business practices. If you look far back enough in history, it was probably a wonderful place to work with great work ethics.
  • BadassFractal 15y ago
    To quote another poster in this thread: Tell that to the employee who was "terminated within the hour."
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• michaelochurch 15y ago
  I am surprised that people are surprised by this. Who do VCs spend their skiing trips with: ramen-fed, sleep-deprived startup founders, or other VCs? Of course, they hang out with each other. Same with executives at large companies. They might be nominally "competitors", but they've already learned that they have more in common with one another than with employees in the companies they run.
  • nyellin 15y ago
    We are surprised by the blatant disregard for employee rights and that they would do something so illegal.
    • michaelochurch 15y ago
      I guess I'm cynical, but I'm not surprised. I wouldn't have expected some specific individuals (I thought more of Eric Schmidt; I always liked him) to be involved but the behavior is not shocking. Yes, it's shitty and illegal. No, it's not at all surprising. Let's say that you're talking to an investor and you tell him that you're being courted by another VC and that he needs to act fast. What's the first thing he'll do, if he takes you seriously? Pick up the phone and call the guy (they were classmates in business school, and it's "bros before schmos", man.) If there was proper competition, that sort of thing would never happen. Social class is an ugly reality and people in higher social classes always look out for each other first. The real competition is insiders vs. outsiders. Human societies are naturally conspiratorial. I don't know what the solution to this problem is (other than, individually, to just keep working hard and trying to be awesome enough that the general wankbasketry of humanity doesn't matter) but it's obvious that our current regulatory machinery is too thin.
      • badclient 15y ago
        Actually I am shit surprised. Is there any chance of this becoming criminal?
        • jamesaguilar 15y ago
• jcslzr 15y ago
  That is what is funny about all those people that treat ¨conspiracy theories¨ as nuts. Is like corruption must have a limit just because they have not seen it first hand.
• itmag 15y ago
  Gee, I didn't know that employees were akin to the King's game, making it a Bad Thing to poach them. In my world, poaching employees == offering them better options in exchange for the value generating capabilities that they bring to the table. Quid pro quo, and if someone else offers a better quo...
  • marshray 15y ago
    Really. I always considered "to poach" to be a slightly whimsical way to refer to recruiting employees. It never occurred to me that a colluding cartel might be using it as intentional language engineering.
• jballanc 15y ago
  I think anyone whose opinion of Steve Jobs is changed by this knowledge needs to take a good look in the mirror and ask if they are not the hypocrite. Jobs always was a consumate businessman. Before Apple, even, he was scheming his way through a job, getting Wozniak to do his work and going back on his word to split profits. But isn't that what America is all about? Aren't your shoes, clothes, electronics, etc. made by low wage workers at companies run by men and women who are willing to do anything for an extra dollar? Isn't that capitalism? Isn't that their "fiduciary duty to the shareholders"? In the world of engineering, engineers are a resource just as oil is a resource for an oil company. Do you also get angry when oil companies hire lobbyists to wine-and-dine politicians until they give favorable exploration rights on federal lands to those companies? How is this any different, morally? Ultimately, the really hard question is: would we have the iPod, iPhone, MacBook Air, iPad if Jobs had not done what he did?
  • JabavuAdams 15y ago
    You're invoking a tired ends justifies the means argument for ... consumer devices? Not societal survival, not space travel, not some other grand enterprise, but ... iPods?
    • jballanc 15y ago
      I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm merely pointing out that there is a mythos surrounding Jobs that he was some sort of design god or product messiah. The only thing he ever was was a businessman. If your opinion of him changes knowing that he colluded to keep his cost of engineering low (much the same as he manipulated the market for flash memory to keep those prices low), then you probably didn't pay enough attention in the first place. Of course, that's the danger in a cult of personality, isn't it?
  • angersock 15y ago
    A great many of us actually do get annoyed at that behavior, and do get annoyed at lobbying. EDIT: Removed inflammatory remark.
  • devs1010 15y ago
• malandrew 15y ago
  The one argument I get sick of hearing bandied around in cases like these is: "but those companies invested a lot of money in training their employees. How would you like it if you owned a business and trained someone only to have them poached?" In the words of Dwight Shrute: "False!". Most of the employees in question in this case and probably every other case where poaching is worthwhile are autodidacts. These employees are valuable precisely because they work hard to increase their own value. They know that, and they deserve to be paid accordingly by shopping themselves around. It is in the market for autodidacts where actions like these are most damaging to the individuals affected.
  • devs1010 15y ago
    I couldn't agree more.. software developers in general (and presumably those in other related fields) tend to mostly be autodidacts. Sure, you learn from other employees and from what the company has in place already but usually they are adding value the entire time, its not as if they sit you down for hours every week and put you in a classroom where there is no pressure other than "learn something new". Thats what school is for and anyone who is working in an engineering field is most likely spending time on their own working on projects, etc that improve their skills.
  • lucisferre 15y ago
    Exactly, they likely trained themselves as part of building this value, as well as probably training, mentoring and increasing the value of those around them. The purpose behind these companies actions was nothing less than to artificially deflate the market value of these individuals, which is completely despicable.
  • _delirium 15y ago
    In addition, if companies really do believe that, they can explicitly negotiate terms around it, up front. That's what happens with, for example, the military paying for med-school: you agree that you'll do N years with them subsequently as a military doctor, or will pay back the med-school tuition if you don't. Apple could negotiate something like that; options vesting schedules are one attempt. Alternately, they could negotiate minimum-term contracts, where the employee and Apple agree that neither side will terminate the employment relationship in fewer than N years without serious cause.
• AlexV 15y ago
  I would be curios to see a LinkedIn graph showing (and proactively finding) evidence of this whole saga. That is, I would expect to see less movement of employees with certain talents, between conspiring companies.
  • wtvanhest 15y ago
    Absolutely. I bet there is a huge statistical relationship there.
    • AlexV 15y ago
      Is there a way to get this information off of LinkedIn? I am guessing it would be possible to pull it out of Google+ profile pages, but I am not sure it has historical data, or been around long enough for that matter. Facebook would surely have it but I doubt this information is accessible.
• jphackworth 15y ago
  So let's say I am running a startup with two employees. A friend of mine is also running a startup and needs to hire people. Is it wrong for me to ask him not to hire my employees?
  • ajays 15y ago
    Why are people defending these practices? This is not a personal attack, but are you so deluded to think that your 2-person startup is in the same league as Apple, Google and Intel?
  • whamill 15y ago
    That's not the question. It would be wrong for him to turn down job applications from one of your two employees [on the grounds that they work for you, not based on their not matching his needs] and then inform you that they applied, allowing you to victimise them while torpedoing their own chances at the other company.
  • devs1010 15y ago
    At that level its a bit more of a personal issue but I think it would be wrong to have an agreement in place, sure you can ask and its likely that you would not poach each other's workers because it would damage your own relationship, however to keep this going as your company scales would definitely be wrong. You don't have to poach anyone's employees, but to have formal agreements in place not to do so is clearly collusion. This would also include summarily rejecting applications because they currently work for the other guy's startup.
  • pullo 15y ago
    there is a good article by Ben Horowitz to this point. http://bhorowitz.com/2011/02/23/is-it-ok-to-hire-people-from-your-friend’s-company/ http://bhorowitz.com/2011/02/23/is-it-ok-to-hire-people-from... what happened here is much bigger than a deal that goes between two friends who run a startup. it by all means seems like collusion by the overlords to ensure the minions are kept where they are to 'serve' them ( a minor exaggeration). Parts of this story is revolting, like firing and making an example of the recruiter who poached a google employee.This sickens me and is surprising , probably cause, I am not cynical enough..
• wtvanhest 15y ago
  It just occurred to me that when I told Intel I wouldn't be returning after my internship, HR was very pushy about where I was going. I'm glad I was going to a company outside the agreement or I would probably have had no job.
  • wtvanhest 15y ago
    Now that I have been thinking about this comment that I posted earlier, I am infuriated.
    • sounds 15y ago
      I don't want to sound cynical, so please respond. I'm willing to see both sides the issue. I have known some great people in HR, as well. I worked for Intel. Their HR is a nightmare. Be careful about telling them anything (more than what you are legally obligated). When they get pushy, push back. Intel has deep enough pockets to handle a little push-back from their employees.
      • wtvanhest 15y ago
        They systematically ruined people's lives and systematically reduced market pay. They rely on paying market wages and site that in their negotiations. I was able to make 40% more at the other company. The only other side should be removing all HR employees and rehiring. Someone should have been a whistle blower and any and all HR people at those companies who did not say something should be ashamed of themselves.
• SonicSoul 15y ago
  somewhat related. Last week a friend of mine that is growing his recruiting business tried to put me in contact with someone at this firm in NYC, for a position that sounds ideal for me and my background. Once he got to the HR department, and as soon as they saw where i currently work, they told him that they have some agreement about not hiring people from my current company and that was it. They didn't even seem to want to explain the details of said agreement. Now, i definitely didn't sign a contract forbidding me from going to that place. Is this even legal?
  • tsuyoshi 15y ago
    It is not legal. That is precisely why Apple, Google, etc. are being sued.
    • SonicSoul 15y ago
      which law are they breaking? i thought discrimination only covers specific things such as race/age/pregnancy status.. and everything else is off limits. i.e the company may reject someone based on his music taste or propensity to wear green pants.. also, could there be a situation where there is some conflict of interest based on nature of business of both firms?
    • cdr 15y ago
      The defendants are claiming bi-lateral agreements are legal, and only bi-lateral agreements existed rather than a 3+ party conspiracy. Whether either claim is true, I have no idea.
  • devs1010 15y ago
    If you can, get him to say that in writing (email will do), find a good lawyer and sue him, the more scum that do this that are exposed (at any level) the better off employees are in this industry as a whole.
• OoTheNigerian 15y ago
  Here is a different perspective. As an entreppreneur, I would not want my employees poached. I do not miind them seeking out other opportunities, but I would want them to make the move, not an external entity. Poaching can create artificial demand. A satisfied employee an become unsatisfied overnight if he is offered a higher salary elsewhere which you don't/can't match. If I had the way to stop poaching, I will. If my employee wants to seek new opportunities, I will not stop him. The sacking of the person that was doing the recruiting is totally unacceptable to me. He was just doiing his job
  • reitzensteinm 15y ago
    Sure, I wouldn't want my employees poached either; from the employer's perspective, it's a pretty nasty thing to deal with. But taking any steps to prevent offers being made is just not ethical.
  • badclient 15y ago
    It is okay to want to do illegal or unethical things. That is pretty human. It is another thing to actually do them.
  • notatoad 15y ago
    In what way does poaching create artificial demand? If your employee is valuable enough that another company wants to recruit them, that's not artificial demand, it's real demand. If you won't or can't match a salary somebody else is willing to pay, you deserve to lose that employee. If your employee can't do the tasks you require of him, you fire him. If you can't pay your employees what they are worth, they go elsewhere. That's the way the world works.
    • OoTheNigerian 15y ago
      Lets take a scenario. You Hire a guy and pay him $120 K a year. Within 6 months you spend say $60k training him. He now theoretically becomes worth $120K per year. Would you be happy if someone just came and offered that much? Considering the time taken to recruit and money to train him. In essence, Facebook (or big spenders) can make a small talented startup their official recruiting arm. As the guy being recruited, it is great. As an employer, it sucks. I reiterate, if the employee wants to leave and initiates the process, I would not have a problem it that. However, I would not want my employees or business unsettled.
• ajays 15y ago
  CEO to the Board: I am indispensable; therefore I need the 10s of millions of dollars as compensation. CEO to the employee: You are indispensable; therefore you can't leave for a better paying job.
  • yuhong 15y ago
    Are these really the same CEOs?
  • nluqo 15y ago
    CEO to the Board: please give me 1 dollar in compensation.
    • MichaelSalib 15y ago
      Salary is not the same thing as total compensation.
      • nluqo 15y ago
        Very true. Unless we are talking about Steve Jobs.
        • MichaelSalib 15y ago
          Jobs was given millions of dollars in stock options. His total compensation was far far beyond $1/year.
          • nluqo 15y ago
            The last time he took options was 2003. His total compensation for the last 8 years has been $1/year.
            • ajays 15y ago
              Since 1997, he was paid $1/year in salary. But he certainly wasn't living in the poor house. In 2001, the company gifted him a $90 million Gulfstream jet, and paid for all related expenses. According to Apple’s proxy statement from February 2011, Jobs owned about 5.5-million shares of Apple stock. In addition, he owned about $5 Billion of Disney stock, which gave him an annual dividend of about $50 Million.
• eugenejen 15y ago
  In east Asia, poaching is viewed as bad taste and disloyal. A person has to leave a job first before looking for next job. A company tries to recruit employees from other companies gets blacklisted for a period. But despite of distaste, people does it.
• badclient 15y ago
  So is any of this criminal that one or more of these execs may goto prison?
• tlogan 15y ago
  It is getting clearer and cleared that Google is just as any big corporation which will do any illegal and un-ethical thing as long as they are not caught. Now, many of companies started with excellent ethical standards, but that is getting slowly lost as companies grow. I wonder if there is some similar work as "Innovators Dilemma" but about company's ethical standards: explaining why and when a company's become very prone to "fuck ethics" approach.
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
• 00101000100101 15y ago
  Why does it seem like everybody cowed to Apple in this case? Would they have engaged in collusion without Jobs at the center?
• donaldc 15y ago
  Once again I am happy that non-competes are generally not enforced in California. Otherwise, the companies involved wouldn't even need to reach illegal agreements to interfere with the employment free market.
• martinkallstrom 15y ago
  Serious question: if an accelerator asks participating startups to not hire employees from one another, does it violate laws governing fair competition?
  • tikhonj 15y ago
    Even if it isn't illegal, it's probably contrary to the interests of the accelerator: if one of your startups needs somebody more than another--enough for an increase of pay or some other benefits--then, for the whole program, having that person move is probably better than artificially forcing him to stay.
  • sroussey 15y ago
    I think that would fall under conspiracy to commit crimes, but talk to a lawyer. In the end, I think it would show that the accelerator was pretty stupid. There will be a natural inclination not to do so inside the program anyway, so why cross the line like that?
• pnathan 15y ago
  According to http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/921674/In_Re_High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_-_Unredacted.pdf http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/921674/In_Re_High-Tech_Emp..., the source pdf, defendants are: * Apple * Lucasfilm * Adobe * Intuit * Google * Intel * Pixar Good to know. I shall follow this case with interest.
  • lawnchair_larry 15y ago
    I'm curious if the list is exhaustive, or if it is just the ones who got caught.
    • hga 15y ago
      Heh heh, that's what discovery is for. Of course, they might settle to avoid among other things more dirty laundry coming out or being solidly confirmed.
• malandrew 15y ago
  I think this Betabeat article is really relevant since it shows that this is happening at the startup level in NYC as well: http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/17/poaching-etiquette-how-to-love-thy-startup-neighbor-while-coveting-their-devs/ http://www.betabeat.com/2011/11/17/poaching-etiquette-how-to... This is important because it means that new hires are probably getting less equity than they should be getting. Equity and belief in what the company is building should be enough to not require anti-poaching agreements.
• usedtolurk 15y ago
  I'm surprised just how ruthlessly this was enforced. When Jobs complained to Schmidt, the person who contacted an Apple employee was "terminated within the hour." A Senior Google VP replied: "Appropriate response, thank you. Please make a public example of this termination with the group." Mind you, they have a great incentive. Only a handful of companies recognise 10x (or 100x) developers and they would like to continue paying just 2x for them.
  • tim_h 15y ago
    Which companies recognize 10x or 100x developers?
• publicus 15y ago
  Gates = Great person, despicable businessman. Jobs = Despicable person, great businessman.
• xal 15y ago
  I'm the CEO of the fastest growing tech company in my geographical region ( off the beaten path ) and I get calls by other CEOs asking for stuff like this very very often. In our case it's because those other CEOs don't want to compete on perk and benefits with us which makes it even more sad. This happens everywhere and at all levels.
• fabjan 15y ago
  Unionize.
• dsolomon 15y ago
  Great way to keep employee salaries low.