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Steve Jobs threatened patent suit to enforce no-hire policy: filing
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoIt's unfortunate that these execs won't get prison time for this, and that Jobs wont be tried and sentenced posthumously. Yet downloading unprotected email addresses is worth up to 10 years, and downloading academic journals is worth up to 35. Really, which of these things is more damaging?
- monochromatic 14y agoOh good, let's compare yet another unrelated thing to aaronsw.
- cema 14y agoWell... The nature of the crime is unrelated, perhaps. But the measuring scale, so to speak, is the same: length of incarceration. So from the point of view of the measuring instrument, it is comparable, and the comparison makes sense.
- parasubvert 14y agoPrison time? You do realize these actions are not necessarily illegal (nor immoral) and the corporation would liable, not necessarily the individuals? Trying to stop poaching is standard practice. When it becomes too widespread, Uncle Sam steps in. When the bankers that blew up the global economy in 2008 just got bonuses cut, what makes you think THIS of all things would be criminal?
- jlgreco 14y agoIt seems clear to me that he is asserting the laws are wrong, not that they broke the laws that would get that sort of punishment.
- parasubvert 14y agoSure, I'm asserting that the laws aren't even wrong, let alone would they ever be changed in the direction the OP wants. I don't think it is credible to claim these actions are criminally damaging. I don't think copyright infringement is criminally damaging either, mind you, but that's somewhat off topic.
- jlgreco 14y agoThe DoJ did not share your perspective, nor I think do most people.
- parasubvert 14y agoUm, where has the DOJ tried to lock up executives for preventing poaching? Your understanding of "most people" may be limited. Keep in mind you live in a politically polarized country.
- jlgreco 14y agoDid I say the DOJ thought they were to be locked up? Are you being deliberately obtuse?
- parasubvert 14y agoFrom the OP: "It's unfortunate that these execs won't get prison time for this" The flow went like this: I suggested that this was not illegal or immoral, so not deserving of prison time. You suggested that the OP meant that the laws are wrong. I said that they're not wrong, nor would any changes to them that incarcerated executives for anti-competitive practices likely ever be put into law. You suggested the DOJ disagreed with me, as do most people. I don't think I'm being obtuse, but perhaps I just have a very different perspective on this.
- jlgreco 14y ago
- OGinparadise 14y ago"[Eric] Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'" "Mr. Jobs also suggested that if Palm did not agree to such an arrangement, Palm could face lawsuits alleging infringement of Apple's many patents," So much for being a country of laws. Was any of these execs ever prosecuted or suffered a penny in fines for this? Sure conspiracy to do something illegal is illegal
- fpgeek 14y agoIsn't this filing part of a legal process intended to do just that (i.e. appropriately penalize the companies behind this collusive scheme)?
- knightni 14y agoThe problem is that by punishing companies and rewarding individuals, you tend to create an incentive for individuals to break the law (the risk/reward, on a personal level, gets skewed). In cases like this it's arguable that the individuals involved should be prosecuted.
- OGinparadise 14y agoGoogle and Apple have close to $200 Billion in cash, so a even a "substantial" penalty to them is like taking a quarter out of my pocket. Put a few execs in jail and see how fast it stops.
- doe88 14y agoI think these practices show a total lack of respect from these companies (in this case Apple) to their own employees, it's shameful.
- doktrin 14y agoBoth, frankly. The public punishment google meted out to their own staff was a classless act as well.
- soup10 14y agoI love how this no-poaching debacle really shines a light on the hypocrisy of some much beloved tech mega-corps. Google and Apple execs may shower employees with perks, but at the end of the day, top execs still treat most of their labor like a statistic to be optimized and exploited for maximum value rather than human beings. The only difference is some of the tech companies have realized that happy employees are good employees. Which I guess is progress. But what i'd really like to see more common decency and respect of the rank and file employee by senior management. Colluding to not hire employees of your friends company is extremely disrespectful because it means lower employee wages over-all, and it's using the dominant position of an employer to limit the options/free-will of your employee to protect their own profits.
- _delirium 14y ago> The only difference is some of the tech companies have realized that happy employees are good employees. I wonder if it's even that positive, or they've just realized that, in the current Valley employment climate where many people have alternative employment options, happy employees are the only not-quitting employees.
- kenjagi 14y agoA free muffin or breakfast sandwich shouldn't offset a bad salary.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago> Google and Apple execs may shower employees with perks On some level this is designed to make it easier for you to be at work longer. Why add an extra 30 minutes to your lunch break by driving off site when the cafeteria(s) can give you the same options/quality (and are free in some cases)? Need to leave at 5 to make it to your dry cleaner before it closes? Don't worry... we have in house dry cleaning.
- neya 14y agoFinally, here's his true color. "Don't do this or I will sue you" is the most unimaginative, terrible, desperate statement one could make to enforce their unfair superiority over others, especially given the fact that this person was known to be a lot more creative and intelligent otherwise.
- swang 14y agoYes and no. Your post makes it seem like this is the first time anyone has heard of Steve Jobs threatening to sue. Apple sued Microsoft over Windows, then got Microsoft to invest and commit Office to Macintosh for 5 years + $150 million to settle litigation between the two companies. Jobs threatened to sue former CEO of Sun over a prototype desktop environment[1] [1] http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artists-copy-great-artists-steal/ http://jonathanischwartz.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/good-artis... This is unfortunately a side effect of living in a world where software and software ideas can be patented. It is a shame that Steve Jobs resorted to this kind of bullying to get what he wanted though. Seems very childish but pretty in-step with how he was portrayed in his biography.
- aaronbrethorst 14y agoApple sued Microsoft over Windows, then got Microsoft to invest and commit Office to Macintosh for 5 years + $150 million to settle litigation between the two companies. It was more than that. Apple was seen as the only 'credible' competition to Microsoft in the OS space. If Apple went under, Microsoft was absolutely going to get smacked with an antitrust lawsuit by the government. As it works out, they did anyway, but I think that a $150mm deal on non-voting shares (which were later resold at a profit) was seen as a no-brainer sort of move.
- cremnob 14y agoSee here for more. All of Silicon Valley was in on this. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper-trail-steve-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-didnt-want-you-to-see http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3906310/the-no-hire-paper-...
- spindritf 14y ago> "Schmidt responded that he preferred it be shared 'verbally, since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later?'" he said, according to the court filing. The HR director agreed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGo5bxWy21g&t=78s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGo5bxWy21g&t=78s
- cremnob 14y agoGreat scene. Eric Schmidt also had the recruiter terminated as a "public example". http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/7564645/google4_verge_super_wide.png http://cdn3.sbnation.com/entry_photo_images/7564645/google4_...
- amirmc 14y ago"In 2010, Google, Apple, Adobe Systems Inc, Intel, Intuit Inc and Walt Disney Co's Pixar unit agreed to a settlement of a U.S. Justice Department probe that bars them from agreeing to refrain from poaching each other's employees." How do you check that the companies are not still colluding? Is there some background level of 'poaching' the DoJ expects? Confusing.
- breckenedge 14y agoWhistleblowers
- michaelochurch 14y agoI could tell a few stories about what happens when you engage in whistleblowing. Ex-managers try to fuck up future jobs, for one. Whistleblowers are great for society, but I wouldn't advise it as a career move. Not unless you have your career set up (book deals, influential friends) already.
- orofino 14y agoHere's a link to the actual filing: http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit Quite illuminating.
- doktrin 14y agoIt's certainly interesting to look back at these events from our current vantage point. In particular, how 3 companies conducted themselves at the time - and where they are now (Apple, Google, Palm). This is correlation, and not necessarily causal. However, it's rather bitter sweet to think about nonetheless.
- msoad 14y agoWhat is no-hire policy? Can someone explain it please?
- lawnchair_larry 14y agoIt's a conspiracy to suppress the labor market. If you are an employee at a tech company and are being underpaid, you can't go to another employer for your market salary, because there is a secret agreement for them to ignore your job application. Even if you are not underpaid, but you simply want a change (maybe you always wanted to work at Google, and an opportunity arises) your resume gets black-holed because Apple "owns" you. The end result is your engineers have restricted mobility, and you don't have to pay them what they're worth. It's very similar to price fixing, but with humans and their ability to earn a living. Many tech companies were part of this conspiracy willingly, and Jobs threatened to sue the less willing companies using Apple's patent portfolio war-chest if they didn't agree to his demands. Edit: Let it be known that Ed Colligan is a class act. See his response to Jobs here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit
- etherael 14y agoI can't believe he had the nerve to go on the record after being specifically told what he was planning was illegal once again on public record and then re-iterate his original threat. So not only the no hire thing, but basically extortion to get Palm to comply? Any last shred of respect I had for the guy just evaporated.
- leoc 14y agoSome of the agreements were more limited (and more sneaky) than that. For example (going by the evidence of the Adobe no-hire list) Adobe's no-hire agreement with Apple was "Do not pro-actively solicit candidates from Apple. However, if a candidate from this company applies to a position, you can pursue." and many of its other agreements were of that nature. It still sucks for you if you were (say) a SAP employee who could have had a better job at Adobe but weren't unhappy or ambitious (or suspicious) enough to be sending out your resume.
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- denzil_correa 14y agoI have always wondered why this was not taken by the DOJ actively without a filing required from tech workers. This incident was widely reported in the media and the law system should have just pre-empted this situation. In the Swartz case, the prosecution pursued even after JSTOR dropped the charges. Why can't the same be done in this case?
- elemeno 14y agoBecause this is a civil suit so the DoJ has no jurisdiction over it.
- denzil_correa 14y agoIf the DOJ takes it over it can easily be a "non-civil" suit. It is "civil" because the tech members decided to file a case. Even if the tech members did not file the case - the DOJ (or any other appropriate organization) should have picked it up to champion fair employment policies. You don't always require a common man to be the plaintiff. The government (or any other appropriate organization) can themselves be the plaintiff just like the Swartz case. This clearly highlights the inconsistencies in the legal system.
- monochromatic 14y agoWhat criminal law are you saying was broken?
- denzil_correa 14y agoWasn't there a breach of fair employment practices? If the OP is true, it essentially means you can't move over from Google to Apple. Why should that be the case?
- minwcnt5 14y agoThat's not what it means. The agreement was that e.g. recruiters from Apple would not actively attempt to recruit Google employees, i.e. solicit them. They couldn't really prevent a Google employee from applying for a job at Apple though if they're the one to initiate it. (What are they going to do, ask "Do you still work at Google, or did you recently quit? Still there? Sorry we can't interview you in that case."?)
- rachelbythebay 14y agoThey gave us 10% raises in the name of retention. This also happened right around the time they killed the no-poaching policies. That sounds like the kind of insurance they needed now that the no-poaching policies were gone. Come on, lawyers, someone prove that this cost us all 10% of our salaries for the duration of the agreements. Then have them do the numbers and cough up that much money they didn't pay us because we magically weren't being wooed by these other companies. I could stand to make quite a bit from this, and a bunch of my friends could, too.
- michaelochurch 14y agoIt's more than 10% that it has cost us. There are a lot of ripple effects and multipliers, not only related to pay, but also to working conditions, autonomy, and quality of work. That said, in the long term, the companies that engage in these collusions lose because non-participants have a larger talent pool. Cartels like that are only stable if they can muscle out or absorb non-participants, and it seems unlikely for technology employment. More onerous is the collusion among VCs, both on the discussion of terms, and in their tendency to think as a group about who they like and who they don't.
- emiliobumachar 14y agoDoesn't the same reasoning apply to VC's? Are there any huge barriers to entry the VC market that I'm not seeing?
- michaelochurch 14y agoIt seems to me that most VCs want to become part of the club that already exists, not compete with it. This is probably coming out of the assumption that the most well-known VCs get the best deals. I don't know how accurate that is.
- sses 14y agoI wish this point was raised more in the fawning articles about how great a place Google is to work, and how generous the 10% raise was, e.g. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/google_people_operations_the_secrets_of_the_world_s_most_scientific_human.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/01/...
- jakobe 14y agoI somehow understand that Jobs would be angry when Palm started hiring all those people from the iPod team, especially at a time when Apple was stealthily working on the iPhone. As much as I despise patent litigation, I can understand Jobs' point of view: when so many people change from one company to another, a lot of knowledge will go with them. One could interpret Jobs' threat of just a means to protect Apple's intellectual property. To ensure that Palm doesn't use stuff that Rubinstein et al developed at Apple.
- darkarmani 14y agoIt's not like Jobs hired all of his workers fresh out of college. Where do you think they all came from before they got to Apple? It's just far cheaper to threaten other companies than to keep your workers happy. It's not like there aren't legitimate ways to retain your people.
- maxharris 14y agoIf other economic sectors were as free from regulation as the computer industry, business would be mostly booming in those sectors as well. One of the things those businesses would want is more technical employees. In that predominantly free market, anti-poaching agreements wouldn't be effective, because it isn't possible for any single enterprise to forge agreements of this kind with more than a handfull of its peers at a time. Don't believe me? Banking and medicine are two of the most heavily regulated industries in the US. And it's why, given the choice of working for Kaiser Permanente, Bank of America, Apple, or Google, any one of us would choose Apple or Google over the other two.
- jack-r-abbit 14y agoIs it telling that the only company in this mess that had any principles (Palm) is the only one that couldn't make it in the long run? Maybe I am just reading too much into that.
- mahyarm 14y agoIt might of been their position too. If palm was top dog, would they be acting similarly?
- wissler 14y agoAt least Steve Jobs knew what the patent system was actually for.
- kbutler 14y agoAfter the Palm CEO refused to collude: "This is not satisfactory to Apple...My advice is to take a look at our patent portfolio before you make a final decision here. Steve" Wow.
- hhuio 14y agoWow, that is beyond evil.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- flywheel 14y agoSteve Jobs was a scumbag. His reality distortion field created his legions of followers who have their heads so far up their asses that they can't see what an evil person he really was. I want to barf any time I see those TV specials praising him after his death.