4 ms·

What is "hoarding of talent"? These are human beings and they have a right to work where they want. Let's be clear, apple "hoards" talent by offering them compe

by bko 3y ago

What is "hoarding of talent"? These are human beings and they have a right to work where they want. Let's be clear, apple "hoards" talent by offering them competitive pay and benefits. If others want to compete they should offer something as compelling. It doesn't have to be money, I personally left for less money multiple times. It could be working on an interesting problem or with smart people.

ceejayoz 3y ago
https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-... > Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe will shell out $415 million to put to rest an antipoaching civil lawsuit that accused the companies of conspiring not to hire each other's employees. > Filed by former employees of the companies involved, the lawsuit shed a light on the practice of some major tech industry players of allegedly working together to agree not to poach employees from each other. The affected employees had argued that such agreements limited their ability to rise up in the industry and stifled their attempts to earn higher salaries. Email exchanges among such top executives as late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs and former Google CEO and now executive chairman of Alphabet Eric Schmidt revealed how requests were made not to hire certain employees away from each other.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Which is pretty much the opposite of what the complaint upthread is making. The lawsuit you reference was basically about not "hoarding talent" by paying more money.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    The post upthread didn't assert they hoarded talent by paying more. They hoarded talent by conspiring to make it harder to leave, which had the bonus of not having to pay them as much.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. Yes, they're also somewhat prestigious to some people and imagine there's at least some interesting work. But it's lot like they're chaining people to their desks or generally forcing people into unbreakable long-term employment contracts. In CA, there aren't even non-competes generally. Most people at Google, to name one, are free to walk out the door tomorrow.
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        > Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. They were actively attempting to avoid that. https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests-no-poaching-deal-in-play/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests... "In another e-mail exchange between two vice presidents at Google, the pair talk about ways to 'never get into bidding wars' on potential talent with Schmidt and longtime Apple board member Bill Campbell being copied in on it." > But it's lot like they're chaining people to their desks or generally forcing people into unbreakable long-term employment contracts. In CA, there aren't even non-competes generally. This wasn't contractual. This was direct anti-competitive conspiracy between top executives.
        ghaff 3y ago
        Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. It seems to specifically focus on disincenting them from doing startups >The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        > Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. The upthread comment stated "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years", which is 2008-2016. I'd be pretty disincentivized to leave if I started getting the message that Jobs could personally get offers rescinded and recruiters fired at competitors as powerful as Google.
- laborcontract 3y ago
  Well known lawsuit from ten years ago is relevant to 2022-2024 how?
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    The post said "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years". That would be right smack dab in the "ten years ago" spot.
- bko 3y ago
  The answer is pretty simple. Make those clauses unenforceable, as well as non compete clauses. You could do it relatively easily without new regulations and fines and all the bs associated with new anti big tech initiatives. Overall I don't think it's a winning proposition for the companies involved. So if they want to have an internal rule that forbids them from hiring people, they're just shooting themselves in the foot and will suffer consequences and give up eventually or cheat since it's unenforceable
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    These weren't contract clauses; they were direct conspiracy between top execs via email. > One email exchange recounted how Jobs asked Schmidt to stop Google from trying to hire one of Apple's engineers. "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," Jobs wrote to Schmidt on March 7, 2007.
    - indigo0086 3y ago
      I'm curious why governments aren't held to this standard of conspiracy the are caught being "very pleased" if private companies did this or that to stifle various freedoms. If JS was honest and a comedian he'd bring something like this up to the FTC rather than give the federal government a nice ego massage.
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        > I'm curious why governments aren't held to this standard of conspiracy the are caught being "very pleased" if private companies did this or that to stifle various freedoms. In the situation you're hinting at, social media companies regularly and frequently said "no" to those requests. That does not appear to have been the case in the Google/Apple non-compete conspiracy. In other words, it's only a conspiracy if both sides conspire.
        indigo0086 3y ago
        In some situations they said yes, and because they felt pressure to do so, which would just be coersion.
ghaff 3y ago
This is basically a complaint that they hired too many developers and overpaid them--and now some of those developers who left or were laid off can't find as ridiculously well-paid jobs somewhere else. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of jobs out there; they probably just don't pay as well or are as prestigious.
- cma 3y ago
  There are rules about making the price of something too low to wipe out competitors too, I think in both antitrust and trade law: https://www.trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duties https://www.trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duti... You could probably say that's basically a complaint about giving consumers too good of a deal, but it is deeper than that.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Capping salaries that are too high would be a pretty novel application of anti-dumping law. But, heh, I'm fine with capping developer salaries at large tech firms.
- bdw5204 3y ago
  The issue in the current market isn't ex-FAANG employees. Most of them can probably find jobs elsewhere or should have plenty of savings to live on until the Fed cuts the interest rates and they can get funding for their startup. It is people who don't have FAANG on their resume and can't find work at all because FAANG decided to use its monopoly power to manipulate the labor market. Specifically recent graduates and people who've been laid off from companies that aren't FAANG. Manipulating the labor market is far worse than manipulating the consumer market. People can choose to live without computers even if that's increasingly challenging. People can't survive in a country like the US that lacks a basic social safety net without stable employment.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    So your argument is that if these people were never hired in the first place, the market would be better for people with less good backgrounds either for reasons of schooling or experience? I'm not sure I draw that connection. I generally get that things are tougher for juniors--especially juniors with questionable credentials--but I have trouble drawing a line that developers are generally worse who were showered with money at a few companies in 2021-2023. And there are always industry periods when things are tougher for some cohorts (or even all of them).
retrac 3y ago
> If others want to compete they should offer something as compelling Perhaps they cannot? Monopolies can apply to the purchase of labour, too. Indeed, the lack of viable competition, would be circumstantial evidence, to support the argument that there is a monopoly. Monopolies will sometimes overpay for labour in the same way they will undercharge for products - it can squeeze competitors out.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I've known plenty of people who left the big West Coast tech employers for elsewhere--possibly/probably for less money. Lots of reasons not to want to work for Google or Amazon.
  - retrac 3y ago
    Yes, and plenty of people quit the mines in company towns, and went to work in the big city. Considerable practical buyer or worker choice may exist, in an emerging monopolistic situation. Monopoly concerns aren't always the evil villain literally destroying all competitors, a single really large company can just be so big it distorts the market everywhere it turns. For an example on the consumer side, think Microsoft in the 1990s and early 2000s. In hindsight, obviously some monopoly concerns, even though there was niche and viable competition, in every sector they competed in.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Microsoft clearly had monopoly issues. I'm not sure they were from an employee perspective though. I don't remember Microsoft being viewed as a uniquely attractive employer in that period.
- bko 3y ago
  It's not a closed system with a fixed number of employees. They overpay for labor, which encourages more engineers to go into the field, which increases supply. Never underestimate the elasticity of supply. Sorry but you're not going to convince me that high wages are a bad thing.
tivert 3y ago
>> This really isn't that surprising. The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising. > What is "hoarding of talent"? These are human beings and they have a right to work where they want. Let's be clear, apple "hoards" talent by offering them competitive pay and benefits. The thing you're missing is that FAANG exploited short-term individual level incentives to create an environment that was more hostile to those individuals in the long term. Sure, they may have gotten paid more for a little while, but where are they going to go when FAANG decides to dump them, because they didn't actually need them? The FAANG's actions inhibited the creation of those opportunities, because those opportunities competed with FAANG.
ametrau 3y ago
He just told you. They exerted their power to do unconscionable things to people and the market in general. Framing it as “competitive pay for people doin a job” is almost like doing their propaganda for them.

by bko 3y ago

ceejayoz 3y ago

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-... > Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe will shell out $415 million to put to rest an antipoaching civil lawsuit that accused the companies of conspiring not to hire each other's employees. > Filed by former employees of the companies involved, the lawsuit shed a light on the practice of some major tech industry players of allegedly working together to agree not to poach employees from each other. The affected employees had argued that such agreements limited their ability to rise up in the industry and stifled their attempts to earn higher salaries. Email exchanges among such top executives as late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs and former Google CEO and now executive chairman of Alphabet Eric Schmidt revealed how requests were made not to hire certain employees away from each other.

ghaff 3y ago
Which is pretty much the opposite of what the complaint upthread is making. The lawsuit you reference was basically about not "hoarding talent" by paying more money.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  The post upthread didn't assert they hoarded talent by paying more. They hoarded talent by conspiring to make it harder to leave, which had the bonus of not having to pay them as much.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. Yes, they're also somewhat prestigious to some people and imagine there's at least some interesting work. But it's lot like they're chaining people to their desks or generally forcing people into unbreakable long-term employment contracts. In CA, there aren't even non-competes generally. Most people at Google, to name one, are free to walk out the door tomorrow.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > Of course paying higher salaries is a big part of it. They were actively attempting to avoid that. https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests-no-poaching-deal-in-play/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/jobs-e-mail-to-schmidt-suggests... "In another e-mail exchange between two vice presidents at Google, the pair talk about ways to 'never get into bidding wars' on potential talent with Schmidt and longtime Apple board member Bill Campbell being copied in on it." > But it's lot like they're chaining people to their desks or generally forcing people into unbreakable long-term employment contracts. In CA, there aren't even non-competes generally. This wasn't contractual. This was direct anti-competitive conspiracy between top executives.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. It seems to specifically focus on disincenting them from doing startups >The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising.
        ceejayoz 3y ago
        > Ten years ago yes. Which has nothing to do with the upthread comment. The upthread comment stated "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years", which is 2008-2016. I'd be pretty disincentivized to leave if I started getting the message that Jobs could personally get offers rescinded and recruiters fired at competitors as powerful as Google.
laborcontract 3y ago
Well known lawsuit from ten years ago is relevant to 2022-2024 how?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  The post said "hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years". That would be right smack dab in the "ten years ago" spot.
bko 3y ago
The answer is pretty simple. Make those clauses unenforceable, as well as non compete clauses. You could do it relatively easily without new regulations and fines and all the bs associated with new anti big tech initiatives. Overall I don't think it's a winning proposition for the companies involved. So if they want to have an internal rule that forbids them from hiring people, they're just shooting themselves in the foot and will suffer consequences and give up eventually or cheat since it's unenforceable
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  These weren't contract clauses; they were direct conspiracy between top execs via email. > One email exchange recounted how Jobs asked Schmidt to stop Google from trying to hire one of Apple's engineers. "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this," Jobs wrote to Schmidt on March 7, 2007.
  - indigo0086 3y ago
    I'm curious why governments aren't held to this standard of conspiracy the are caught being "very pleased" if private companies did this or that to stifle various freedoms. If JS was honest and a comedian he'd bring something like this up to the FTC rather than give the federal government a nice ego massage.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > I'm curious why governments aren't held to this standard of conspiracy the are caught being "very pleased" if private companies did this or that to stifle various freedoms. In the situation you're hinting at, social media companies regularly and frequently said "no" to those requests. That does not appear to have been the case in the Google/Apple non-compete conspiracy. In other words, it's only a conspiracy if both sides conspire.
      - indigo0086 3y ago
        In some situations they said yes, and because they felt pressure to do so, which would just be coersion.

ghaff 3y ago

This is basically a complaint that they hired too many developers and overpaid them--and now some of those developers who left or were laid off can't find as ridiculously well-paid jobs somewhere else. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of jobs out there; they probably just don't pay as well or are as prestigious.

cma 3y ago
There are rules about making the price of something too low to wipe out competitors too, I think in both antitrust and trade law: https://www.trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duties https://www.trade.gov/us-antidumping-and-countervailing-duti... You could probably say that's basically a complaint about giving consumers too good of a deal, but it is deeper than that.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Capping salaries that are too high would be a pretty novel application of anti-dumping law. But, heh, I'm fine with capping developer salaries at large tech firms.
bdw5204 3y ago
The issue in the current market isn't ex-FAANG employees. Most of them can probably find jobs elsewhere or should have plenty of savings to live on until the Fed cuts the interest rates and they can get funding for their startup. It is people who don't have FAANG on their resume and can't find work at all because FAANG decided to use its monopoly power to manipulate the labor market. Specifically recent graduates and people who've been laid off from companies that aren't FAANG. Manipulating the labor market is far worse than manipulating the consumer market. People can choose to live without computers even if that's increasingly challenging. People can't survive in a country like the US that lacks a basic social safety net without stable employment.
- ghaff 3y ago
  So your argument is that if these people were never hired in the first place, the market would be better for people with less good backgrounds either for reasons of schooling or experience? I'm not sure I draw that connection. I generally get that things are tougher for juniors--especially juniors with questionable credentials--but I have trouble drawing a line that developers are generally worse who were showered with money at a few companies in 2021-2023. And there are always industry periods when things are tougher for some cohorts (or even all of them).

retrac 3y ago

> If others want to compete they should offer something as compelling Perhaps they cannot? Monopolies can apply to the purchase of labour, too. Indeed, the lack of viable competition, would be circumstantial evidence, to support the argument that there is a monopoly. Monopolies will sometimes overpay for labour in the same way they will undercharge for products - it can squeeze competitors out.

ghaff 3y ago
I've known plenty of people who left the big West Coast tech employers for elsewhere--possibly/probably for less money. Lots of reasons not to want to work for Google or Amazon.
- retrac 3y ago
  Yes, and plenty of people quit the mines in company towns, and went to work in the big city. Considerable practical buyer or worker choice may exist, in an emerging monopolistic situation. Monopoly concerns aren't always the evil villain literally destroying all competitors, a single really large company can just be so big it distorts the market everywhere it turns. For an example on the consumer side, think Microsoft in the 1990s and early 2000s. In hindsight, obviously some monopoly concerns, even though there was niche and viable competition, in every sector they competed in.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Microsoft clearly had monopoly issues. I'm not sure they were from an employee perspective though. I don't remember Microsoft being viewed as a uniquely attractive employer in that period.
bko 3y ago
It's not a closed system with a fixed number of employees. They overpay for labor, which encourages more engineers to go into the field, which increases supply. Never underestimate the elasticity of supply. Sorry but you're not going to convince me that high wages are a bad thing.

tivert 3y ago

>> This really isn't that surprising. The FAANGs, including Apple, have committed serious anti-trust violations especially their hoarding of talent during the 0% interest rate years to prevent them from starting competitors then freezing hiring and laying off en masse once the interest rates started rising. > What is "hoarding of talent"? These are human beings and they have a right to work where they want. Let's be clear, apple "hoards" talent by offering them competitive pay and benefits. The thing you're missing is that FAANG exploited short-term individual level incentives to create an environment that was more hostile to those individuals in the long term. Sure, they may have gotten paid more for a little while, but where are they going to go when FAANG decides to dump them, because they didn't actually need them? The FAANG's actions inhibited the creation of those opportunities, because those opportunities competed with FAANG.

ametrau 3y ago

He just told you. They exerted their power to do unconscionable things to people and the market in general. Framing it as “competitive pay for people doin a job” is almost like doing their propaganda for them.