13 ms·

Steve Jobs' exchange with Palm CEO Ed Colligan

321 points by maccman 14y ago

glazskunrukitis 14y ago
Pure tyranny.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  I disagree. Poaching is frowned upon in every industry. That said, it is likely the Palm CEO wasn't aware that the 3 employees they hired were poached. He probably thought they came on their own. Which just goes on to show how out of touch with reality he must have been (ironically, since it was Jobs who was known for his Reality Distortion Field). I mean, who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places?
  - tlrobinson 14y ago
    "I mean, who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places?" Keep in mind this exchange took place in 2007, soon after the very first iPhone was launched.
    - TheAnimus 14y ago
      Maybe someone who was offered a better deal? Apple aren't exactly renowned for giving people a say in development, save a few royal elite. If your an untouchable at Apple, but are offered a good role at Palm, why not take it? It's the old sentiment of would you rather live in a decrepid shack on a fancy road, or a grand house on a normal one.
  - tolmasky 14y ago
    There is nothing wrong with poaching (and it is certainly not illegal). It is frowned upon the same way as "talking about your salary" is frowned upon, and usually for the same reason: it leads to increased leverage for employees. By creating fictitious mores around these two activities, employees have less of an understanding of how well or badly they are being treated (less insight into the market for their talents). If you are making twice as much as me because I am a better negotiator, you may continue without a fuss for years if you never find out. Creating a culture about not talking about your salary is thus highly valuable to an employer. Similarly, if I am a good employee and too distracted by working, I may never realize that the going salary for a company is now X times what I make. Another company contacting me may make me aware of this, and thus it is equally beneficial to attach false stigma to this practice. There is (or was at some point) a similar amount of stigma about being disloyal to your employer (thankfully this has more or less disappeared). If it is so absurd that someone would leave Apple for Palm, then why did they care and threaten so much?
    - enraged_camel 14y ago
      >>There is nothing wrong with poaching (and it is certainly not illegal). I've always found it unethical. It's similar to going to a girl who has a boyfriend and saying "hey baby, I know you're dating Mike, but I would be such a better boyfriend for you..." Whether or not you would actually be a better boyfriend, or whether it is good for the girl, is quite besides the point.
      - tolmasky 14y ago
        This line of reasoning requires the belief that a company has some special claim to you, which I find pretty distasteful. The company doesn't own you, you are not an indentured servant. You didn't sign a contract saying you'd work there for life. And more importantly, they will certainly fire you as soon as they need to. This is in no way analogous to a committed marital relationship, where the entire idea is lifetime exclusivity, or dating when you are theoretically working towards that.
        enraged_camel 14y ago
        >>This line of reasoning requires the belief that a company has some special claim to you, which I find pretty distasteful. The company doesn't own you, you are not an indentured servant. Neither does your girlfriend. You are not an indentured servant to her. But the fact that you are dating her means that there is mutual trust on both sides, similar to that in an employee-employer arrangement. Poaching undermines that trust. edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. "Don't downvote simply because you disagree" was an unspoken rule, I thought? If you have a disagreement, voice it.
        tolmasky 14y ago
        The employer-employee relationship is a contractual agreement regarding the exchange of money for labor. Are you going to argue that that is similar to dating? Hopefully not. The day I have to pay my girlfriend to be with me is the day I won't be offended if someone tries to "steal" her away. Employer-employee relationships are asymmetrical and purely business oriented. There is no "trust" on their side, I can guarantee you that - that is why they have you sign NDA's when you work on secret things (I have yet to find a company that just trusts you to keep it all secret). That is why it is so beneficial for them to rely on you believing in precisely these sorts of analogies: they have lawyers and contracts on their side, you are left with believing in "loyalty" and "trust". The fact that you equate contractual work between a corporation and a person to a loving relationship between two equals is quite demonstrative of my original point.
  - franze 14y ago
    >Poaching is frowned upon in every industry. no, it's not. there is not an unlimited supply of good and experiences people on the market. if you wan't to succeed you have to get them, somehow. it's competing for ressources, it's a good thing. it's frowned upon only if somebody good is "poached away", but not if you convince somebody from the competition to work for you.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    >Poaching is frowned upon in every industry by the companies who want to exploit people without worrying about competition. FTFY. Labor is a market exactly like any other. If I buy Chevrolet for years and then suddenly switch to Ford because they offer a better deal was I "poached"? Such a nonsensical concept. If you don't want people "poaching" your talent, pay them better. If you can't afford to then that's just the market efficiently allocating resources.
    - walshemj 14y ago
      Amen brother its how capitalism works
    - nathan_long 14y ago
      I agree, except for this: imagine Company X will pay twice as much for engineers who currently work for a competitor, specifically because they want to get the competitor's knowledge. The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up legally. They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets, but it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've learned in a past job. I don't see a good solution to this, but I can see why one would be upset by such "poaching." That said, "do what we want or we'll sue you for patent infringement" is an inexcusable tactic.
      - flyinRyan 14y ago
        >specifically because they want to get the competitor's knowledge. This is covered by NDAs and if you can prove these were violated you can get something done about it. I've seen this happen. >The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up legally. I should certainly hope they wouldn't be held up legally. It's bullshit. The worker has a chance to make twice as much money. They shouldn't get blocked because some company thinks we're still in slavery times. If it really matters so much to the company, they could just pay those workers double themselves (since, by definition, that's the market rate of those workers now). Moving is always a bit of a pain so if they're not already very unhappy they might even take less than double just to not have to move. >They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets If they can prove the NDA was violated they will sue and they will win. >but it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've learned in a past job. What you learn on the job is yours. This is known and completely accepted. If this were not the case then a Senior programmer would make the same money as a fresh-out-of-college Junior programmer. You may find this extreme but some of us believe a programmer should get some kind of residuals for anything they write for a company the way authors/musicians/movie stars/sports players do for their work.
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    > who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places? If I'm remembering right, Palm basically had a standing offer to double the salary of anyone who worked on the iPhone at that point in time. That looked pretty attractive to some people.
m0dE 14y ago
I like how Job's letter had no sentiments attached to it. He knew where both companies stood and he didn't hesitate to go for the gain.
- abcd_f 14y ago
  Didn't get what he wanted though. Sentiments or not.
jtchang 14y ago
This is one of the cases where it is hard as hell to infer what tone Steve Jobs wanted to reply back with. It sure sounds assholish but it is very well possible he knew that Palm was actively poaching and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs. Palm's CEO writes a fairly well measured e-mail but it is still a political dance.
- lollancf37 14y ago
  The tone doesn't matter. Context is of course of importance but let's face it, even if with a good lawyer you can defend almost anything. Steve Job's attitude is clearly set on death and destruction to his enemies lol.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >very well possible he knew that Palm was actively poaching Which isn't illegal, immoral or wrong in any way. >and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs Do you mean NDA here or non-compete clauses? NDAs should certainly be adhered to but non-compete clauses should be illegal and certainly never enforced.
philp 14y ago
Appalling. Maybe somebody with a legal education that eclipses mine can chime in here, but isn't this whole exchange just mired in liability landmines? For starters, Jobs is trying to coerce a non-compete clause out of Colligan. To the best of my knowledge, that is just flat out illegal in California. Then we have the pretty much blatant threat of unrelated patent litigation if Palm chooses not to cooperate with the aforementioned hiring policy. Shouldn't that be regarded as extortion? Would love to hear an expert opinion on why this exchange even took place in any traceable from. I imagine an Apple lawyer would see Jobs type this up and just burn the whole place to the ground...
- ghshephard 14y ago
  "Jobs is trying to coerce a non-compete clause out of Colligan. To the best of my knowledge, that is just flat out illegal in California." Non-compete clauses aren't enforceable, but I don't think agreeing to them, or requesting that you agree to them, is in violation of any State law. It certainly was the case that every severance agreement that I've ever signed had a non-compete clause - which I happily signed as I was aware it was completely unenforceable.
  - OafTobark 14y ago
    There are very rare instances where non-competes are enforceable but generally are more for founders than employees for anyone reading this.
- ajsharp 14y ago
  I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure what Jobs was suggesting was some form of collusion. I don't know that his threats could be held up as extortion, but collusion is a prosecutable offense. My question is, what might be the statute of limitations on something like this? Does it disappear with the passing of Jobs, or could Apple still be held responsible for this?
  - djt 14y ago
    He was CEO at the time so the company would be liable.
sachingulaya 14y ago
Useful context for Jobs' response: "Jon Rubinstein is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer who played an instrumental role in the development of the iPod. Jon Rubenstein left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14, 2006. He became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc., after private equity firm Elevation Partners completed a significant investment in the handheld manufacturer in October 2007." "Anderson previously served as executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer of Apple Inc. from March 1996 through June 2004.[1] He took over the duties of CEO after the ouster of CEO Gil Amelio and before the appointment of Steve Jobs as interim CEO.[2] His responsibilities at Apple included oversight of the companies controller, treasury, investor relations, tax, information systems, internal audit, facilities and human resources operations.[1] On June 8, 2004, Anderson was appointed to Apple's board of directors. On October 4, 2006 Anderson resigned from Apple's board following a three month investigation into Apple's stock option practices.[3]"
- accountswu 14y ago
  I don't know how important those Palm employees were who were poached by Apple but the Palm CEO says 2% of his employees were taken by Apple (2% of Apple's employees would mean 300 folks).
rdl 14y ago
I wonder if Mr. Colligan actually felt that way and was that principled/articulate, or if he either knew it was illegal or ran it by his lawyers to take the high ground in a letter which they thought would likely become public/discoverable later.
- codezero 14y ago
  I work at a level way way below that of an executive and I get minor communications which prompt me to seek legal counsel (thank goodness we can afford it). I assure you that he ran this discussion by his lawyers before responding to Jobs, he would have been a complete fool had he not. This entire document seems like it was crafted to make Colligan look virtuous, and maybe he was, but if so, it was because his lawyers told him that it would be to his benefit. Note that this document references a phone call that happened first, this call was totally undocumented and points to the fact that both sides were feeling each other out to seek a benefit, when it was clear that Palm held the poor hand, they started crafting a defense.
- RexRollman 14y ago
  It doesn't have to be an either/or. It could be both.
- campnic 14y ago
  The fact that he sent an email follow up to a phone conversations means that 1) he had already decided not to become part of the collusion and 2) he wanted to leave a paper trail which would be made public if the collusion was ever detected. If they've had off the record phone communication about the subject, the decision to follow that up with an email is a calculated decision. If he had decided to participate in the recruitment embargo, it certainly would not have been acknowledged in an email for all the discovery reasons that make this a compelling PR piece. On the flip side, Steve Jobs comes off as being completely ignorant that this is discoverable. I don't know why he'd include threats in an email like this.
  - altcognito 14y ago
    Or, it just goes to show how little CEOs and companies (particularly at this level) have to fear anymore about actually being prosecuted.
balbaugh 14y ago
The difference in writing styles and the impact thereof. This really stood out to me. The Palm CEO seems to really be on the defensive the whole time, even while countering the patent threat. Jobs, on the other hand, was short and deliberate.
- ajsharp 14y ago
  Yea, the Palm letter clearly had been reviewed by someone in his corporate counsel. They probably coached him on what points to hit on that might look good to a judge one day.
zaidf 14y ago
At least one guy knew these emails would be becoming public one day and his tone and message says so.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
sethbannon 14y ago
What a shameful way to run a company. This is not how we innovate.
- gsibble 14y ago
  You're assuming Apple wants anyone else to innovate. I would not say that assumption is correct.
- jolohaga 14y ago
  What's your recipe for innovation?
- JabavuAdams 14y ago
  No, it's how one competes at the highest levels. To believe otherwise is naive. It's why it's better to be a millionaire than a billionaire, in many respects.
skc 14y ago
Interesting responses so far on HN I must say. It's a good thing for some here that Microsoft was found guilty for their bullying tactics because it gives people an out when comparing Apple and Microsoft, when in reality, in terms of aggressiveness they actually are/were one and the same.
dorkitude 14y ago
Steve's letter is a disappointment to me. I wrote up my thoughts here, in a post entitled "It’s important not to worship any hero wholesale": http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-to-worship-any-hero-wholesale http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-to-w...
- laumars 14y ago
  This isn't new or unique for Jobs though. He was great at portraying the public image of an ambitious hippy and a visionary who seeked innovation. But in reality he was a bad tempered and egotistical attention seeker with a narrow mind and thus had to do everything his own way. None of his innovations were invented by him. Not even in the early days (Wozniak deserves the real praise there). His hippy attitudes only extended as far as was convenient for him (he claimed that money was never a motive, yet he was one of the most ruthless CEOs who added the highest mark ups on their products than any other company in the technology sector). He didn't even extend his hippy attitudes to his own work force as he was a complete bastard to anyone who wasn't working themselves to death. And then there's the way he treated his own family - absolutely disgraceful. What Jobs had going for him was his ability to switch on his charisma when he needed to. This is what lead him to recruiting some of the brightest minds; this is what helped inspire them to create the products they did; and this is what helped convince the millions of devoted followers that Apple were anything more than just another 'megacorp'.
  - marcusf 14y ago
    While total worship is crazy, it feels just as unbalanced to say that Steve's only quality was a toggle-switch on his charisma. Maybe I'm reading what you're trying to say uncharitably though.
    - laumars 14y ago
      I think you're right that I'm being unbalanced. I just get so sick of reading about people crediting him personally for all the great technological breakthroughs that I was probably over compensating with the aforementioned rant.
ForFreedom 14y ago
They sound like 5 year olds.
- tjansen 14y ago
  "They" or "He"?
  - ForFreedom 14y ago
    They=He
- jsz0 14y ago
  5 year olds are direct because they don't know how to sugar coat and spin things yet. It's not exactly a bad quality in adults. I'd rather someone just be direct with me than writing 8 paragraphs just hinting at something and hedging their bets carefully choosing every word to maximize their wiggle room. I'm at the point where I will respond to that type of e-mail with a very short "tell me exactly what you want from me" type of response. I won't exchange a dozen e-mails trying to drag the reality of a situation out of someone anymore.
- marvin 14y ago
  Companies, or even countries, are remarkably childish when they have disagreements. Just read a bit of history and see how incredibly petty, uncompromising and unreasonable a lot of the diplomacy between countries in the WWI/WWII era was. I think this is very interesting, but I don't have any good suggestion why this happens.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
This is almost entirely CEO-misdirection. At any stage CEOs / founders throw their weight around in a mosh pit of entrepreneurialism. If someone they bounce into falls over or steps back, they know they are onto a winner and push harder. Get thrown back and they bounce randomly in another direction. This sort of threat is common - it is useless to imagine it might be a potential partnership, there is no gain in it for Apple, it is just pushing in a mosh pit - push back then concentrate on making great products - the only thing that counts in the pit.
kyro 14y ago
Somewhat related: One thing that's always somewhat of a surprise to me is that as genius as a marketer as he was, Steve Jobs wasn't terribly eloquent. It's something I first noticed when watching his Stanford speech years ago and continued to pick up on throughut his various keynote addresses and leaked emails like the one in the linked document. His sentence structure was typically one-dimensional and vocabulary simple, which is probably why he was such an effective salesman -- he was easy to understand. Being a strong, effective leader usually conjures up images of people who are prolific writers and great orators, or Bill Clinton-type masters of persuasion, but Steve wasn't any of that.
- bad_user 14y ago
  I'm not sure what you think of when you say "eloquent". I watched the Standford speech and other talks of him and the thing that always struck me was how eloquent and persuasive he was. Also, great orators do use a simple vocabulary. Bill Clinton is not necessarily the right example, because he's a politician and bullshiting people with fancy words and long speeches are part of the job description.
  - kyro 14y ago
    Eloquence in terms of mastery over the English language. Steve definitely was persuasive, but not because of expansive vocabulary, carefully crafted sentences or even logical arguments. His passion conveyed much more meaningful messages, and actually, it's likely that his simple and direct manner of speech helped those messages come through with clarity.
    - DougBTX 14y ago
      How can you tell that he didn't carefully craft simple and direct speech to convey his passion with clarity? It's tricky to pin down cause and effect, but since so many people understood his passion through his use of English, I'd be wary of saying he didn't have it mastered.
  - jimbokun 14y ago
    Clinton's persuasive genius was on display in the last Democratic National Convention where he made clear what Obama had achieved, and the tactics the Republicans were using to try to stop him, in very clear, simple language everyone could understand. I think Clinton and Jobs are more alike than different, in that respect.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
djt 14y ago
I think before people jump on the bandwagon they should think about Jobs state of mind when he wrote this. iPhone just launched and still vulnerable. Senior staff going to a competitor and also Personally poaching staff and being involved in the interviews etc. Let alone Jobs health issues etc. Im not saying that Jobs was right, but we have the benefit of hindsight to see that the iPhone worksed, there was no guarantee of that happening.
- djt 14y ago
  If you disagree with what I said please leave a comment. When comments that are idiologically "wrong" get downvoted without discussion then it leads to a hivemind mentality.
  - tomelders 14y ago
    I rarely jump into HN comments any more. There's little more than snide in them these days. For what it's worth, I think yours is the only original comment in here thus far.
    - djt 14y ago
      Yes it has seemed to change quite rapidly in the last 12 months. I think Hacker News used to be mainly Start-Up, tech and business starters. Whereas now it is mainly start-up porn.
      - jaytaylor 14y ago
        Yes, thinking about the wave of change over the past year or so makes me sad. Even more sad are the periodic proposals to "improve" (i.e. fix) HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488561 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488561 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4399108 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4399108 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842554 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842554 And PG randomly chimes in throughout.. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 And then there is the complaining: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 None of these things seem to be working very well. They may alleviate a portion of the pain temporarily, but the baseline level of quality throughout the community still feels way off to me compared to what I see in the old threads. As a sidenote, I like the explanations in this post about why digg, reddit, and slashdot went sour: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=178514 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=178514
zapfmann 14y ago
Jee.. Still using an apple machine to read this?
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  No? What does it matter?
infoseckid 14y ago
I'd have to give it up for Steve - ruthless and firm! No doubt Apple has done so well. Love the guy! Especially loved the part where he says "asymmetry ... " and "you guys felt otherwise - patents" ... Haha! love the Jobs style! Employees are mercenaries anyway - I think Steve did the right thing as the founder.
znowi 14y ago
Nothing in this correspondence surprises me. Just an everyday Steve Jobs. What I worry about is his apprentice - Mark Zuckerberg. Who is possibly more brutal in his approach, and potentially far more dangerous.
- seunosewa 14y ago
  Mark Zuckerberg, brutal and dangerous? I don't think so.
  - xradionut 14y ago
    Considering how much data he has access to, extremely dangerous.
cantlin 14y ago
What strikes me most is the absolute single mindedness of Jobs, especially in contrast to Colligan's appeal to empathy. This is not acceptable to Apple. What a way to talk! Colligan goes to great lengths to establish commonality, using rhetoric like "Like you, ...", "...as you said...", "We can both try...", "...big enough for both of us...". He invokes individual liberty, "this is America!", rationalising and depersonalising his stance. For Steve though, there appears to be one thing only: stop doing what you're doing. He belittles then intimidates, in clipped dismissive sentences. All Ed's appeals to reason seem to mean less to him than the mud on his boot. Stop. Doing. What. You're. Doing.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  Think about Palm vs. Apple. People running companies turn to empathy when they are at a disadvantage.
WayneDB 14y ago
Direct link to PDF, look on page 8 or just search for Palm: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/files/945CLE.pdf http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/f...
frogpelt 14y ago
Steve Jobs was a megalomaniac. Interestingly, his megalomaniacal tendencies actually produced things that others might not have been able to get done. In other words, it became a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy to live in his fantasy world where everyone should do exactly as he thought they should.
- jolohaga 14y ago
  Jobs couldn't have done what he did if power was his motivation.
veidr 14y ago
Steve Jobs may have been a dick, but he was really fuckin preternaturally good at being a dick.
- csmattryder 14y ago
  You can be great at eating dirt, doesn't mean you should do it. Especially with the 'financial resources' comment, he was being politely reassured that the recruitment is purely in Palm's technology interests, and Jobs comes back with a 'we're doing better than you' remark. How some people think he's a saint (or for some a deity in his own right) is truly beyond me.
  - michaelhoffman 14y ago
    The point wasn't really "we're doing better than you" but rather that Apple could easily afford to throw away a lot of money so that Steve could get his way.
nathan_long 14y ago
This should be Exhibit A in the case for patent reform. Patents are no longer a protectant for The Little Inventor; they are weapons that big companies can stockpile and use them to bully competitors. With the smartphone market as hot as it is, wouldn't you expect to see thousands of companies making them? This is why you don't.
- tubbo 14y ago
  lol what the fuck are you even talking about? this has NOTHING to do with the article.
Zelphyr 14y ago
Colligan: 3 pages Jobs: 1 Sounds about right.
billiam 14y ago
Why the current meme for examining Steve's entrails? Is anyone surprised at this exchange? One of Steve's lifelong obsessions was a wildly distorted idea of employee poaching. As someone who worked at two different companies that received these kinds of communications from Steve, I can say that he usually only struck out at companies he knew well, like Palm. Ed probably doesn't know it, but Steve actually threatened Palm in much the same way years earlier. He did the same sputtering act about prceived poaching with Motorola around 2005, which took some stones, since at the same time he and his guys were busy playing MOT like a pinball machine to teach them how to make phones and how to do business with AT&T. But that's another story. In both these instances, lawyers were dutifully involved, but the execs involved mostly just laughed it off. Steve being Steve.
starik36 14y ago
I am going to go against the grain here and say that what Steve Jobs is asking (e.g. stop direct recruitment of Apple employees) is not unreasonable. Microsoft's continued poaching of Borland employees brought about the demise of the company, so I can see what he is worried about.
- mullingitover 14y ago
  He's asking for his competitors to stop offering his employees more money than he's paying them. He has all the money he needs to make counteroffers and keep his employees in the fold, but he wants to deny them their fair market value so he can keep that money. It's exploitation of the people who are building his business and it's essentially stealing from them.
parasubvert 14y ago
I don't find this email exchange appalling at all. What's appalling is the naive idealistic reaction here, that reeks of blindness to how business is practiced at scale. I've been involved in this sort of anti-poaching discussion at senior levels before. It happens all the time, in many industries - particularly in jurisdictions non-competes are enforceable. When an executive leaves one place and goes to another (say a CIO or VP), they bring people with them. Often in violation of non-solicitation and non-compete agreements, which are a pain in the ass for everyone to enforce. So you do what you can to Stop. The. Practice. In the case of California, Jobs didnt have a direct legal avenue to stop this so he wanted to use other threats to stop a competitor. That seems normal. If it was not legal, then his lawyers did him no favors. Immoral? Not at all. It's business. The reaction here reminds me of Slashdot circa 98, clucking over leaked Microsoft memos. The hacker/open source idealism here seems way stronger than that of entrepreneurs or business people. Makes sense I guess. Perhaps people love early stage companies here because they can ignore the dirtier parts of business after you have a product/market fit... like, competition. Competition is dirty and messy. It's not a kid gloves "lets out innovate each other!" like you're toddlers in a sandbox not allowed to hit each other. It's about marketing negatively (see Samsung's anti Apple ads), aggressive sales and pricing (see the Nexus 7 sold at cost), stopping poaching (Apple above), and removing supply lines by buying them up (Apple with displays and flash memory). Sure, business isn't JUST those things. It also is innovation. Preferably lots of it. But people here are a rather naive if they think most companies aren't spending over 50% of their time on the former. Apple is actually unique for their size in how much time it spends innovating rather than, to paraphrase Ray Kroc, "sticking a live hose in your competitor's mouth".
- magicseth 14y ago
  It seems rather fallacious to suggest that anything legal is moral when it comes to business.
  - parasubvert 14y ago
    Something illegal isn't necessarily immoral either (see Pot legislation). Morality is a mix of individual belief, faith, and community norms. My point is that what people find immoral here is pretty specious and of a rather isolated community.
EGreg 14y ago
It seems that software patents have long become a case of "hate the game, not the player." Although Steve Jos certainly was the most determined player I have seen on the corporate stage.
blisterpeanuts 14y ago
It's just an interesting little footnote in the history of Apple's rise to handheld superstardom. Ed Colligan sounds very reasonable and level headed in his responses to Jobs' threats and intimidation approach. However, Mr. Colligan basically led his company into insolvency, failing to innovate, failing to support his customers, failing to properly leverage the once-dominant Palm market share. I was there in 2004, a happy user of the mighty Palm T3 which to this very day has some superior features versus the Android and iOS handhelds. My wife still misses her Zire. I gritted my teeth and put up with Palm's steadfast refusal to support Linux; jpilot and pilot-sync filled in the gaps pretty well. Then Palm decided to innovate by abandoning the PalmOS platform entirely and going with WebOS. Did they support Palm apps? Sure, as an extra cost add-on. Friends with Palm WebOS phones traded them in for Android as soon as they could; the units were buggy and crashy. So in the long run, the support and innovation award has to go to Apple, and in my opinion it has less to do with employee poaching than with visionary and intelligent leadership. Certainly you can't build a great company without great talent, but poaching from your competitors is only a small part of the story. Then there's the stigma of being the poachee. Is it advisable to be known as someone who will jump ship and join the enemy for a few more pieces of silver? Is loyalty of so little value? In my opinion, there's great value in loyalty to one's company. If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing.
- cloverich 14y ago
  > Is it advisable to be known as someone who will jump ship and join the enemy for a few more pieces of silver? Is loyalty of so little value? In my opinion, there's great value in loyalty to one's company. If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing. No. But what if say... you hate your boss? You disagree with the coding (for example) style imposed on you? What if more money is just a (small) part of the story? Its not as though Jobs is arguing "Hey, you can take my employees, as long as you don't pay them more ". There are many reasons to leave a job, and any good interviewer will ask you why if you are jumping ship. > If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing. IMHO, not a reasonable expectation. Going to a competitor, you are presumably taking your experience with you. By not going to one, you are presumably throwing it away - why is that a good thing (for innovation or personal success)? It would be great if we all worked for companies that really cared about us. Those companies are few and far between, and my guess is they don't fear employee attrition as much as the bad employers. Or, perhaps that fear of attrition is why they are good to their employees at all. Either way, I don't think the issue is nearly as simplistic as you're making it out to be.
hhuio 14y ago
Jobs have done a great job keeping wages low...
watmough 14y ago
This kind of stuff, and the ridiculous pain that Samsung is being put through, is why I've quit using my iPhone and switched to a Nexus 4.
zmmmmm 14y ago
As someone making his living in various forms of IT, knowledge of this kind of thing is difficult for me. I find it so disgusting that it's very hard to stomach recommending technical solutions, or even investing in the equipment I need, when I know that it will aid in the prospering of these companies that will then use it for such ugly, immoral actions. The problem is you slowly learn of this kind of thing from every tech company and soon enough you're just disgusted with the whole IT career. Unless you are very lucky with your job options, you can't just retreat into some happy corner where you program in Lisp on Linux servers all day long. You have to get over it and put it at arms length or face the fact your career is going to be much less fruitful than it otherwise would be.
- JungleGymSam 14y ago
  You're bummin' me out, man!
outside1234 14y ago
Man, if there was any doubt that Steve Jobs was evil (in the Google business sense), it has been put to rest with this.
dribnet 14y ago
tldr: I, Ed Colligan (ex Palm CEO), swear to god this happened: steve: let's not hire each other's employees anymore, m-kay? ed: thanks steve, but no thanks. jobs: have you seen our patents and pile of cash, ed? you're entering a world of pain.
thewisedude 14y ago
I see this as exploitation or price fixing in some way! Let me elaborate. Lets say Steve Jobs was paying an Engineer $100K at Apple. That skill set might have been worth atleast $120K to Palm. So Palm decides to hire him giving him a decent raise to join ( a good incentive to join). Lets say Palm gives him $120K. Now Apple which secretly knows that the engineer is worth a lot more to Apple will have to throw in more than Palm, say they will have to offer 150K$ to draw him back. Palm might again counter offer and this kind of bidding might go on until the Engineer get his true value(In a way market is deciding the engineer's worth) - But what is happening here is that Steve Jobs is kind of colluding with Palm to "fix the price" of the Engineer without market deciding so! There by saving/making a boatload of cash (money saved is money earned)! Sure, what I am saying is probably not the book definition of price fixing, but I would think that the motive/sentiment is very similar!
tushark 14y ago
This is surreal. Even though Steve Jobs is an inspiration for me, I actually agree a lot with Ed Colligan here. A couple thoughts: - It's definitely possible for both companies to have awesome teams. No one person is going to make or break either team. - Employees should have a right to work where they want to. Part of this means that if I am a skilled employee, I'll get offers to come work for other companies. If I engage in a conversation, then it's perfectly alright for the company to actively recruit me. On the flip side, if I decline, they should back off. But, at the end of the day, it should be my choice. Both the company and employee need to win (which might be hard at times). - Part of living in a free, capitalist, democratic society is the beauty that if an employee tries to leave, you can try to persuade them otherwise. This can be done in a variety of ways, but it comes down to taking the more appealing offer (that doesn't just have to be pay and title, but can also be the values of the company or the employee's lust for working at a particular company or their freedom to have a little less bureaucracy and instead experiment with new ideas, etc. etc.) - I love the jab at the end, where Ed claims that Palm is not interested in getting or using confidential Apple information and also informs their employees of their duties to their previous employers

321 points by maccman 14y ago

glazskunrukitis 14y ago

Pure tyranny.

enraged_camel 14y ago
I disagree. Poaching is frowned upon in every industry. That said, it is likely the Palm CEO wasn't aware that the 3 employees they hired were poached. He probably thought they came on their own. Which just goes on to show how out of touch with reality he must have been (ironically, since it was Jobs who was known for his Reality Distortion Field). I mean, who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places?
- tlrobinson 14y ago
  "I mean, who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places?" Keep in mind this exchange took place in 2007, soon after the very first iPhone was launched.
  - TheAnimus 14y ago
    Maybe someone who was offered a better deal? Apple aren't exactly renowned for giving people a say in development, save a few royal elite. If your an untouchable at Apple, but are offered a good role at Palm, why not take it? It's the old sentiment of would you rather live in a decrepid shack on a fancy road, or a grand house on a normal one.
- tolmasky 14y ago
  There is nothing wrong with poaching (and it is certainly not illegal). It is frowned upon the same way as "talking about your salary" is frowned upon, and usually for the same reason: it leads to increased leverage for employees. By creating fictitious mores around these two activities, employees have less of an understanding of how well or badly they are being treated (less insight into the market for their talents). If you are making twice as much as me because I am a better negotiator, you may continue without a fuss for years if you never find out. Creating a culture about not talking about your salary is thus highly valuable to an employer. Similarly, if I am a good employee and too distracted by working, I may never realize that the going salary for a company is now X times what I make. Another company contacting me may make me aware of this, and thus it is equally beneficial to attach false stigma to this practice. There is (or was at some point) a similar amount of stigma about being disloyal to your employer (thankfully this has more or less disappeared). If it is so absurd that someone would leave Apple for Palm, then why did they care and threaten so much?
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    >>There is nothing wrong with poaching (and it is certainly not illegal). I've always found it unethical. It's similar to going to a girl who has a boyfriend and saying "hey baby, I know you're dating Mike, but I would be such a better boyfriend for you..." Whether or not you would actually be a better boyfriend, or whether it is good for the girl, is quite besides the point.
    - tolmasky 14y ago
      This line of reasoning requires the belief that a company has some special claim to you, which I find pretty distasteful. The company doesn't own you, you are not an indentured servant. You didn't sign a contract saying you'd work there for life. And more importantly, they will certainly fire you as soon as they need to. This is in no way analogous to a committed marital relationship, where the entire idea is lifetime exclusivity, or dating when you are theoretically working towards that.
      - enraged_camel 14y ago
        >>This line of reasoning requires the belief that a company has some special claim to you, which I find pretty distasteful. The company doesn't own you, you are not an indentured servant. Neither does your girlfriend. You are not an indentured servant to her. But the fact that you are dating her means that there is mutual trust on both sides, similar to that in an employee-employer arrangement. Poaching undermines that trust. edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. "Don't downvote simply because you disagree" was an unspoken rule, I thought? If you have a disagreement, voice it.
        tolmasky 14y ago
        The employer-employee relationship is a contractual agreement regarding the exchange of money for labor. Are you going to argue that that is similar to dating? Hopefully not. The day I have to pay my girlfriend to be with me is the day I won't be offended if someone tries to "steal" her away. Employer-employee relationships are asymmetrical and purely business oriented. There is no "trust" on their side, I can guarantee you that - that is why they have you sign NDA's when you work on secret things (I have yet to find a company that just trusts you to keep it all secret). That is why it is so beneficial for them to rely on you believing in precisely these sorts of analogies: they have lawyers and contracts on their side, you are left with believing in "loyalty" and "trust". The fact that you equate contractual work between a corporation and a person to a loving relationship between two equals is quite demonstrative of my original point.
- franze 14y ago
  >Poaching is frowned upon in every industry. no, it's not. there is not an unlimited supply of good and experiences people on the market. if you wan't to succeed you have to get them, somehow. it's competing for ressources, it's a good thing. it's frowned upon only if somebody good is "poached away", but not if you convince somebody from the competition to work for you.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >Poaching is frowned upon in every industry by the companies who want to exploit people without worrying about competition. FTFY. Labor is a market exactly like any other. If I buy Chevrolet for years and then suddenly switch to Ford because they offer a better deal was I "poached"? Such a nonsensical concept. If you don't want people "poaching" your talent, pay them better. If you can't afford to then that's just the market efficiently allocating resources.
  - walshemj 14y ago
    Amen brother its how capitalism works
  - nathan_long 14y ago
    I agree, except for this: imagine Company X will pay twice as much for engineers who currently work for a competitor, specifically because they want to get the competitor's knowledge. The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up legally. They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets, but it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've learned in a past job. I don't see a good solution to this, but I can see why one would be upset by such "poaching." That said, "do what we want or we'll sue you for patent infringement" is an inexcusable tactic.
    - flyinRyan 14y ago
      >specifically because they want to get the competitor's knowledge. This is covered by NDAs and if you can prove these were violated you can get something done about it. I've seen this happen. >The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up legally. I should certainly hope they wouldn't be held up legally. It's bullshit. The worker has a chance to make twice as much money. They shouldn't get blocked because some company thinks we're still in slavery times. If it really matters so much to the company, they could just pay those workers double themselves (since, by definition, that's the market rate of those workers now). Moving is always a bit of a pain so if they're not already very unhappy they might even take less than double just to not have to move. >They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets If they can prove the NDA was violated they will sue and they will win. >but it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've learned in a past job. What you learn on the job is yours. This is known and completely accepted. If this were not the case then a Senior programmer would make the same money as a fresh-out-of-college Junior programmer. You may find this extreme but some of us believe a programmer should get some kind of residuals for anything they write for a company the way authors/musicians/movie stars/sports players do for their work.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  > who in their right mind would leave Apple and join Palm, of all places? If I'm remembering right, Palm basically had a standing offer to double the salary of anyone who worked on the iPhone at that point in time. That looked pretty attractive to some people.

m0dE 14y ago

I like how Job's letter had no sentiments attached to it. He knew where both companies stood and he didn't hesitate to go for the gain.

abcd_f 14y ago
Didn't get what he wanted though. Sentiments or not.

jtchang 14y ago

This is one of the cases where it is hard as hell to infer what tone Steve Jobs wanted to reply back with. It sure sounds assholish but it is very well possible he knew that Palm was actively poaching and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs. Palm's CEO writes a fairly well measured e-mail but it is still a political dance.

lollancf37 14y ago
The tone doesn't matter. Context is of course of importance but let's face it, even if with a good lawyer you can defend almost anything. Steve Job's attitude is clearly set on death and destruction to his enemies lol.
flyinRyan 14y ago
>very well possible he knew that Palm was actively poaching Which isn't illegal, immoral or wrong in any way. >and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs Do you mean NDA here or non-compete clauses? NDAs should certainly be adhered to but non-compete clauses should be illegal and certainly never enforced.

philp 14y ago

Appalling. Maybe somebody with a legal education that eclipses mine can chime in here, but isn't this whole exchange just mired in liability landmines? For starters, Jobs is trying to coerce a non-compete clause out of Colligan. To the best of my knowledge, that is just flat out illegal in California. Then we have the pretty much blatant threat of unrelated patent litigation if Palm chooses not to cooperate with the aforementioned hiring policy. Shouldn't that be regarded as extortion? Would love to hear an expert opinion on why this exchange even took place in any traceable from. I imagine an Apple lawyer would see Jobs type this up and just burn the whole place to the ground...

ghshephard 14y ago
"Jobs is trying to coerce a non-compete clause out of Colligan. To the best of my knowledge, that is just flat out illegal in California." Non-compete clauses aren't enforceable, but I don't think agreeing to them, or requesting that you agree to them, is in violation of any State law. It certainly was the case that every severance agreement that I've ever signed had a non-compete clause - which I happily signed as I was aware it was completely unenforceable.
- OafTobark 14y ago
  There are very rare instances where non-competes are enforceable but generally are more for founders than employees for anyone reading this.
ajsharp 14y ago
I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure what Jobs was suggesting was some form of collusion. I don't know that his threats could be held up as extortion, but collusion is a prosecutable offense. My question is, what might be the statute of limitations on something like this? Does it disappear with the passing of Jobs, or could Apple still be held responsible for this?
- djt 14y ago
  He was CEO at the time so the company would be liable.

sachingulaya 14y ago

Useful context for Jobs' response: "Jon Rubinstein is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer who played an instrumental role in the development of the iPod. Jon Rubenstein left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14, 2006. He became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc., after private equity firm Elevation Partners completed a significant investment in the handheld manufacturer in October 2007." "Anderson previously served as executive vice president and Chief Financial Officer of Apple Inc. from March 1996 through June 2004.[1] He took over the duties of CEO after the ouster of CEO Gil Amelio and before the appointment of Steve Jobs as interim CEO.[2] His responsibilities at Apple included oversight of the companies controller, treasury, investor relations, tax, information systems, internal audit, facilities and human resources operations.[1] On June 8, 2004, Anderson was appointed to Apple's board of directors. On October 4, 2006 Anderson resigned from Apple's board following a three month investigation into Apple's stock option practices.[3]"

accountswu 14y ago
I don't know how important those Palm employees were who were poached by Apple but the Palm CEO says 2% of his employees were taken by Apple (2% of Apple's employees would mean 300 folks).

rdl 14y ago

I wonder if Mr. Colligan actually felt that way and was that principled/articulate, or if he either knew it was illegal or ran it by his lawyers to take the high ground in a letter which they thought would likely become public/discoverable later.

codezero 14y ago
I work at a level way way below that of an executive and I get minor communications which prompt me to seek legal counsel (thank goodness we can afford it). I assure you that he ran this discussion by his lawyers before responding to Jobs, he would have been a complete fool had he not. This entire document seems like it was crafted to make Colligan look virtuous, and maybe he was, but if so, it was because his lawyers told him that it would be to his benefit. Note that this document references a phone call that happened first, this call was totally undocumented and points to the fact that both sides were feeling each other out to seek a benefit, when it was clear that Palm held the poor hand, they started crafting a defense.
RexRollman 14y ago
It doesn't have to be an either/or. It could be both.
campnic 14y ago
The fact that he sent an email follow up to a phone conversations means that 1) he had already decided not to become part of the collusion and 2) he wanted to leave a paper trail which would be made public if the collusion was ever detected. If they've had off the record phone communication about the subject, the decision to follow that up with an email is a calculated decision. If he had decided to participate in the recruitment embargo, it certainly would not have been acknowledged in an email for all the discovery reasons that make this a compelling PR piece. On the flip side, Steve Jobs comes off as being completely ignorant that this is discoverable. I don't know why he'd include threats in an email like this.
- altcognito 14y ago
  Or, it just goes to show how little CEOs and companies (particularly at this level) have to fear anymore about actually being prosecuted.

balbaugh 14y ago

The difference in writing styles and the impact thereof. This really stood out to me. The Palm CEO seems to really be on the defensive the whole time, even while countering the patent threat. Jobs, on the other hand, was short and deliberate.

ajsharp 14y ago
Yea, the Palm letter clearly had been reviewed by someone in his corporate counsel. They probably coached him on what points to hit on that might look good to a judge one day.

zaidf 14y ago

At least one guy knew these emails would be becoming public one day and his tone and message says so.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

sethbannon 14y ago

What a shameful way to run a company. This is not how we innovate.

gsibble 14y ago
You're assuming Apple wants anyone else to innovate. I would not say that assumption is correct.
jolohaga 14y ago
What's your recipe for innovation?
JabavuAdams 14y ago
No, it's how one competes at the highest levels. To believe otherwise is naive. It's why it's better to be a millionaire than a billionaire, in many respects.

skc 14y ago

Interesting responses so far on HN I must say. It's a good thing for some here that Microsoft was found guilty for their bullying tactics because it gives people an out when comparing Apple and Microsoft, when in reality, in terms of aggressiveness they actually are/were one and the same.

dorkitude 14y ago

Steve's letter is a disappointment to me. I wrote up my thoughts here, in a post entitled "It’s important not to worship any hero wholesale": http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-to-worship-any-hero-wholesale http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-to-w...

laumars 14y ago
This isn't new or unique for Jobs though. He was great at portraying the public image of an ambitious hippy and a visionary who seeked innovation. But in reality he was a bad tempered and egotistical attention seeker with a narrow mind and thus had to do everything his own way. None of his innovations were invented by him. Not even in the early days (Wozniak deserves the real praise there). His hippy attitudes only extended as far as was convenient for him (he claimed that money was never a motive, yet he was one of the most ruthless CEOs who added the highest mark ups on their products than any other company in the technology sector). He didn't even extend his hippy attitudes to his own work force as he was a complete bastard to anyone who wasn't working themselves to death. And then there's the way he treated his own family - absolutely disgraceful. What Jobs had going for him was his ability to switch on his charisma when he needed to. This is what lead him to recruiting some of the brightest minds; this is what helped inspire them to create the products they did; and this is what helped convince the millions of devoted followers that Apple were anything more than just another 'megacorp'.
- marcusf 14y ago
  While total worship is crazy, it feels just as unbalanced to say that Steve's only quality was a toggle-switch on his charisma. Maybe I'm reading what you're trying to say uncharitably though.
  - laumars 14y ago
    I think you're right that I'm being unbalanced. I just get so sick of reading about people crediting him personally for all the great technological breakthroughs that I was probably over compensating with the aforementioned rant.

ForFreedom 14y ago

They sound like 5 year olds.

tjansen 14y ago
"They" or "He"?
- ForFreedom 14y ago
  They=He
jsz0 14y ago
5 year olds are direct because they don't know how to sugar coat and spin things yet. It's not exactly a bad quality in adults. I'd rather someone just be direct with me than writing 8 paragraphs just hinting at something and hedging their bets carefully choosing every word to maximize their wiggle room. I'm at the point where I will respond to that type of e-mail with a very short "tell me exactly what you want from me" type of response. I won't exchange a dozen e-mails trying to drag the reality of a situation out of someone anymore.
marvin 14y ago
Companies, or even countries, are remarkably childish when they have disagreements. Just read a bit of history and see how incredibly petty, uncompromising and unreasonable a lot of the diplomacy between countries in the WWI/WWII era was. I think this is very interesting, but I don't have any good suggestion why this happens.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

This is almost entirely CEO-misdirection. At any stage CEOs / founders throw their weight around in a mosh pit of entrepreneurialism. If someone they bounce into falls over or steps back, they know they are onto a winner and push harder. Get thrown back and they bounce randomly in another direction. This sort of threat is common - it is useless to imagine it might be a potential partnership, there is no gain in it for Apple, it is just pushing in a mosh pit - push back then concentrate on making great products - the only thing that counts in the pit.

kyro 14y ago

Somewhat related: One thing that's always somewhat of a surprise to me is that as genius as a marketer as he was, Steve Jobs wasn't terribly eloquent. It's something I first noticed when watching his Stanford speech years ago and continued to pick up on throughut his various keynote addresses and leaked emails like the one in the linked document. His sentence structure was typically one-dimensional and vocabulary simple, which is probably why he was such an effective salesman -- he was easy to understand. Being a strong, effective leader usually conjures up images of people who are prolific writers and great orators, or Bill Clinton-type masters of persuasion, but Steve wasn't any of that.

bad_user 14y ago
I'm not sure what you think of when you say "eloquent". I watched the Standford speech and other talks of him and the thing that always struck me was how eloquent and persuasive he was. Also, great orators do use a simple vocabulary. Bill Clinton is not necessarily the right example, because he's a politician and bullshiting people with fancy words and long speeches are part of the job description.
- kyro 14y ago
  Eloquence in terms of mastery over the English language. Steve definitely was persuasive, but not because of expansive vocabulary, carefully crafted sentences or even logical arguments. His passion conveyed much more meaningful messages, and actually, it's likely that his simple and direct manner of speech helped those messages come through with clarity.
  - DougBTX 14y ago
    How can you tell that he didn't carefully craft simple and direct speech to convey his passion with clarity? It's tricky to pin down cause and effect, but since so many people understood his passion through his use of English, I'd be wary of saying he didn't have it mastered.
- jimbokun 14y ago
  Clinton's persuasive genius was on display in the last Democratic National Convention where he made clear what Obama had achieved, and the tactics the Republicans were using to try to stop him, in very clear, simple language everyone could understand. I think Clinton and Jobs are more alike than different, in that respect.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

djt 14y ago

I think before people jump on the bandwagon they should think about Jobs state of mind when he wrote this. iPhone just launched and still vulnerable. Senior staff going to a competitor and also Personally poaching staff and being involved in the interviews etc. Let alone Jobs health issues etc. Im not saying that Jobs was right, but we have the benefit of hindsight to see that the iPhone worksed, there was no guarantee of that happening.

djt 14y ago
If you disagree with what I said please leave a comment. When comments that are idiologically "wrong" get downvoted without discussion then it leads to a hivemind mentality.
- tomelders 14y ago
  I rarely jump into HN comments any more. There's little more than snide in them these days. For what it's worth, I think yours is the only original comment in here thus far.
  - djt 14y ago
    Yes it has seemed to change quite rapidly in the last 12 months. I think Hacker News used to be mainly Start-Up, tech and business starters. Whereas now it is mainly start-up porn.
    - jaytaylor 14y ago
      Yes, thinking about the wave of change over the past year or so makes me sad. Even more sad are the periodic proposals to "improve" (i.e. fix) HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5042403 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488561 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4488561 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4399108 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4399108 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404718 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842554 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3842554 And PG randomly chimes in throughout.. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4693920 And then there is the complaining: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747 None of these things seem to be working very well. They may alleviate a portion of the pain temporarily, but the baseline level of quality throughout the community still feels way off to me compared to what I see in the old threads. As a sidenote, I like the explanations in this post about why digg, reddit, and slashdot went sour: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=178514 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=178514

zapfmann 14y ago

Jee.. Still using an apple machine to read this?

michaelhoffman 14y ago
No? What does it matter?

infoseckid 14y ago

I'd have to give it up for Steve - ruthless and firm! No doubt Apple has done so well. Love the guy! Especially loved the part where he says "asymmetry ... " and "you guys felt otherwise - patents" ... Haha! love the Jobs style! Employees are mercenaries anyway - I think Steve did the right thing as the founder.

znowi 14y ago

Nothing in this correspondence surprises me. Just an everyday Steve Jobs. What I worry about is his apprentice - Mark Zuckerberg. Who is possibly more brutal in his approach, and potentially far more dangerous.

seunosewa 14y ago
Mark Zuckerberg, brutal and dangerous? I don't think so.
- xradionut 14y ago
  Considering how much data he has access to, extremely dangerous.

cantlin 14y ago

What strikes me most is the absolute single mindedness of Jobs, especially in contrast to Colligan's appeal to empathy. This is not acceptable to Apple. What a way to talk! Colligan goes to great lengths to establish commonality, using rhetoric like "Like you, ...", "...as you said...", "We can both try...", "...big enough for both of us...". He invokes individual liberty, "this is America!", rationalising and depersonalising his stance. For Steve though, there appears to be one thing only: stop doing what you're doing. He belittles then intimidates, in clipped dismissive sentences. All Ed's appeals to reason seem to mean less to him than the mud on his boot. Stop. Doing. What. You're. Doing.

Spooky23 14y ago
Think about Palm vs. Apple. People running companies turn to empathy when they are at a disadvantage.

WayneDB 14y ago

Direct link to PDF, look on page 8 or just search for Palm: http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/files/945CLE.pdf http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/f...

frogpelt 14y ago

Steve Jobs was a megalomaniac. Interestingly, his megalomaniacal tendencies actually produced things that others might not have been able to get done. In other words, it became a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy to live in his fantasy world where everyone should do exactly as he thought they should.

jolohaga 14y ago
Jobs couldn't have done what he did if power was his motivation.

veidr 14y ago

Steve Jobs may have been a dick, but he was really fuckin preternaturally good at being a dick.

csmattryder 14y ago
You can be great at eating dirt, doesn't mean you should do it. Especially with the 'financial resources' comment, he was being politely reassured that the recruitment is purely in Palm's technology interests, and Jobs comes back with a 'we're doing better than you' remark. How some people think he's a saint (or for some a deity in his own right) is truly beyond me.
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  The point wasn't really "we're doing better than you" but rather that Apple could easily afford to throw away a lot of money so that Steve could get his way.

nathan_long 14y ago

This should be Exhibit A in the case for patent reform. Patents are no longer a protectant for The Little Inventor; they are weapons that big companies can stockpile and use them to bully competitors. With the smartphone market as hot as it is, wouldn't you expect to see thousands of companies making them? This is why you don't.

tubbo 14y ago
lol what the fuck are you even talking about? this has NOTHING to do with the article.

Zelphyr 14y ago

Colligan: 3 pages Jobs: 1 Sounds about right.

billiam 14y ago

Why the current meme for examining Steve's entrails? Is anyone surprised at this exchange? One of Steve's lifelong obsessions was a wildly distorted idea of employee poaching. As someone who worked at two different companies that received these kinds of communications from Steve, I can say that he usually only struck out at companies he knew well, like Palm. Ed probably doesn't know it, but Steve actually threatened Palm in much the same way years earlier. He did the same sputtering act about prceived poaching with Motorola around 2005, which took some stones, since at the same time he and his guys were busy playing MOT like a pinball machine to teach them how to make phones and how to do business with AT&T. But that's another story. In both these instances, lawyers were dutifully involved, but the execs involved mostly just laughed it off. Steve being Steve.

starik36 14y ago

I am going to go against the grain here and say that what Steve Jobs is asking (e.g. stop direct recruitment of Apple employees) is not unreasonable. Microsoft's continued poaching of Borland employees brought about the demise of the company, so I can see what he is worried about.

mullingitover 14y ago
He's asking for his competitors to stop offering his employees more money than he's paying them. He has all the money he needs to make counteroffers and keep his employees in the fold, but he wants to deny them their fair market value so he can keep that money. It's exploitation of the people who are building his business and it's essentially stealing from them.

parasubvert 14y ago

I don't find this email exchange appalling at all. What's appalling is the naive idealistic reaction here, that reeks of blindness to how business is practiced at scale. I've been involved in this sort of anti-poaching discussion at senior levels before. It happens all the time, in many industries - particularly in jurisdictions non-competes are enforceable. When an executive leaves one place and goes to another (say a CIO or VP), they bring people with them. Often in violation of non-solicitation and non-compete agreements, which are a pain in the ass for everyone to enforce. So you do what you can to Stop. The. Practice. In the case of California, Jobs didnt have a direct legal avenue to stop this so he wanted to use other threats to stop a competitor. That seems normal. If it was not legal, then his lawyers did him no favors. Immoral? Not at all. It's business. The reaction here reminds me of Slashdot circa 98, clucking over leaked Microsoft memos. The hacker/open source idealism here seems way stronger than that of entrepreneurs or business people. Makes sense I guess. Perhaps people love early stage companies here because they can ignore the dirtier parts of business after you have a product/market fit... like, competition. Competition is dirty and messy. It's not a kid gloves "lets out innovate each other!" like you're toddlers in a sandbox not allowed to hit each other. It's about marketing negatively (see Samsung's anti Apple ads), aggressive sales and pricing (see the Nexus 7 sold at cost), stopping poaching (Apple above), and removing supply lines by buying them up (Apple with displays and flash memory). Sure, business isn't JUST those things. It also is innovation. Preferably lots of it. But people here are a rather naive if they think most companies aren't spending over 50% of their time on the former. Apple is actually unique for their size in how much time it spends innovating rather than, to paraphrase Ray Kroc, "sticking a live hose in your competitor's mouth".

magicseth 14y ago
It seems rather fallacious to suggest that anything legal is moral when it comes to business.
- parasubvert 14y ago
  Something illegal isn't necessarily immoral either (see Pot legislation). Morality is a mix of individual belief, faith, and community norms. My point is that what people find immoral here is pretty specious and of a rather isolated community.

EGreg 14y ago

It seems that software patents have long become a case of "hate the game, not the player." Although Steve Jos certainly was the most determined player I have seen on the corporate stage.

blisterpeanuts 14y ago

It's just an interesting little footnote in the history of Apple's rise to handheld superstardom. Ed Colligan sounds very reasonable and level headed in his responses to Jobs' threats and intimidation approach. However, Mr. Colligan basically led his company into insolvency, failing to innovate, failing to support his customers, failing to properly leverage the once-dominant Palm market share. I was there in 2004, a happy user of the mighty Palm T3 which to this very day has some superior features versus the Android and iOS handhelds. My wife still misses her Zire. I gritted my teeth and put up with Palm's steadfast refusal to support Linux; jpilot and pilot-sync filled in the gaps pretty well. Then Palm decided to innovate by abandoning the PalmOS platform entirely and going with WebOS. Did they support Palm apps? Sure, as an extra cost add-on. Friends with Palm WebOS phones traded them in for Android as soon as they could; the units were buggy and crashy. So in the long run, the support and innovation award has to go to Apple, and in my opinion it has less to do with employee poaching than with visionary and intelligent leadership. Certainly you can't build a great company without great talent, but poaching from your competitors is only a small part of the story. Then there's the stigma of being the poachee. Is it advisable to be known as someone who will jump ship and join the enemy for a few more pieces of silver? Is loyalty of so little value? In my opinion, there's great value in loyalty to one's company. If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing.

cloverich 14y ago
> Is it advisable to be known as someone who will jump ship and join the enemy for a few more pieces of silver? Is loyalty of so little value? In my opinion, there's great value in loyalty to one's company. If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing. No. But what if say... you hate your boss? You disagree with the coding (for example) style imposed on you? What if more money is just a (small) part of the story? Its not as though Jobs is arguing "Hey, you can take my employees, as long as you don't pay them more ". There are many reasons to leave a job, and any good interviewer will ask you why if you are jumping ship. > If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing. IMHO, not a reasonable expectation. Going to a competitor, you are presumably taking your experience with you. By not going to one, you are presumably throwing it away - why is that a good thing (for innovation or personal success)? It would be great if we all worked for companies that really cared about us. Those companies are few and far between, and my guess is they don't fear employee attrition as much as the bad employers. Or, perhaps that fear of attrition is why they are good to their employees at all. Either way, I don't think the issue is nearly as simplistic as you're making it out to be.

hhuio 14y ago

Jobs have done a great job keeping wages low...

watmough 14y ago

This kind of stuff, and the ridiculous pain that Samsung is being put through, is why I've quit using my iPhone and switched to a Nexus 4.

zmmmmm 14y ago

As someone making his living in various forms of IT, knowledge of this kind of thing is difficult for me. I find it so disgusting that it's very hard to stomach recommending technical solutions, or even investing in the equipment I need, when I know that it will aid in the prospering of these companies that will then use it for such ugly, immoral actions. The problem is you slowly learn of this kind of thing from every tech company and soon enough you're just disgusted with the whole IT career. Unless you are very lucky with your job options, you can't just retreat into some happy corner where you program in Lisp on Linux servers all day long. You have to get over it and put it at arms length or face the fact your career is going to be much less fruitful than it otherwise would be.

JungleGymSam 14y ago
You're bummin' me out, man!

outside1234 14y ago

Man, if there was any doubt that Steve Jobs was evil (in the Google business sense), it has been put to rest with this.

dribnet 14y ago

tldr: I, Ed Colligan (ex Palm CEO), swear to god this happened: steve: let's not hire each other's employees anymore, m-kay? ed: thanks steve, but no thanks. jobs: have you seen our patents and pile of cash, ed? you're entering a world of pain.

thewisedude 14y ago

I see this as exploitation or price fixing in some way! Let me elaborate. Lets say Steve Jobs was paying an Engineer $100K at Apple. That skill set might have been worth atleast $120K to Palm. So Palm decides to hire him giving him a decent raise to join ( a good incentive to join). Lets say Palm gives him $120K. Now Apple which secretly knows that the engineer is worth a lot more to Apple will have to throw in more than Palm, say they will have to offer 150K$ to draw him back. Palm might again counter offer and this kind of bidding might go on until the Engineer get his true value(In a way market is deciding the engineer's worth) - But what is happening here is that Steve Jobs is kind of colluding with Palm to "fix the price" of the Engineer without market deciding so! There by saving/making a boatload of cash (money saved is money earned)! Sure, what I am saying is probably not the book definition of price fixing, but I would think that the motive/sentiment is very similar!

tushark 14y ago

This is surreal. Even though Steve Jobs is an inspiration for me, I actually agree a lot with Ed Colligan here. A couple thoughts: - It's definitely possible for both companies to have awesome teams. No one person is going to make or break either team. - Employees should have a right to work where they want to. Part of this means that if I am a skilled employee, I'll get offers to come work for other companies. If I engage in a conversation, then it's perfectly alright for the company to actively recruit me. On the flip side, if I decline, they should back off. But, at the end of the day, it should be my choice. Both the company and employee need to win (which might be hard at times). - Part of living in a free, capitalist, democratic society is the beauty that if an employee tries to leave, you can try to persuade them otherwise. This can be done in a variety of ways, but it comes down to taking the more appealing offer (that doesn't just have to be pay and title, but can also be the values of the company or the employee's lust for working at a particular company or their freedom to have a little less bureaucracy and instead experiment with new ideas, etc. etc.) - I love the jab at the end, where Ed claims that Palm is not interested in getting or using confidential Apple information and also informs their employees of their duties to their previous employers