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Steve Jobs threatened Palm’s CEO, court documents reveal
- codelap 13y agoI'm sorry, I honestly don't see the problem here. Is it illegal or somehow immoral to identify the consequence of a business decision?
- joe_the_user 13y agoWell, as matter of fact Jobs was engaged in intimidation aimed to maintain an arrangement that has been found to be illegal (the "anti-poaching" 'agreement').
- codelap 13y agoReally good point. I really really should have read the full article, not just the title, and the highlighted section. I thought I saw this text almost verbatim before having to do with a licensing dispute.
- pessimizer 13y agoIsn't a mugging simply identifying the consequence of a business decision?
- taopao 13y agoIn the same way that spatial manipulation of an object from the boundaries defined by its legal owner is considered theft.
- jusben1369 13y agobut that's not what is happening. You are coercing someone via threats and intimidation to join you in an illegal act. don't get confused by the fact it's described with 'business sounding" words.
- dribnet 13y agotl;dr: jobs: let's not hire each other's employees anymore, m-kay? colligan (Palm CEO): thanks steve, but no thanks. jobs: have you seen our patents and pile of cash, ed? you're entering a world of pain.
- Fasebook 13y agoSo Apple believes that they have eternal rights to their employees once they paid for their time once... Not a good sign for their customers.
- madeofpalk 13y agoTo be fair, it was found that the rest of Silicon Valley (Google, Adobe, Microsoft etc) were doing the same thing.
- kevcampb 13y agoThe second line should read. colligan (Palm CEO): thanks steve, but no thanks. also, sure that's not legal.
- RexRollman 13y agoI'm sure John Gruber will find a way to spin this in a pro-Apple light.
- jcampbell1 13y agoThis is old news. You can see his spin here: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/01/23/asymmetry http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/01/23/asymmetry
- acqq 13y agoOnly he doesn't spin it as far as I see it: "Could be legal trouble for Apple (and a bunch of other companies), though"
- jcampbell1 13y agoI don't have a dog in the fight, but "The man did not beat around the bush", is soft praise for his frankness. If you believe it was immoral and illegal, this is definitely spin. My take: "Steve Jobs likely broke the law, and engaged in an activity that denied thousands of engineers full market wages. I suspect his motivations were to enrich Apple to stroke his own ego."
- badman_ting 13y agoWhy spin it when he could simply not cover it? (Which he did, by the way.) Gruber actually does post things that cast Jobs in a negative light. Get over it.
- sirkneeland 13y ago[citation needed]
- archagon 13y agoHere's one off the top of my head: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/07/marco-icloud-security http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/07/marco-icloud-sec... Here's another: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/26/icloud-hamburger http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/26/icloud-hamburger I know I've seen a number over the past few years, but searching the website is unfortunately difficult because Gruber is so prolific.
- fidotron 13y agoWhile this is just more detail on old news, I can't help feeling Colligan needs to get as much credit for his statements made here as the others should receive in punishment in forming the cartel to start with. His only failing appears to be not reporting it.
- soperj 13y agoStill don't understand how so many in this business can admire someone like Jobs. It's refreshing to hear about someone who stood up to his "charm".
- MBCook 13y agoHe lead the design of tons of groundbreaking products. He was also a world class grudge bearing short tempered vindictive jerk.
- dmazin 13y agoI just want to clear up the falsehood here that he was the lead design of any product - read the biography. He was lead designer on no product that went to market.
- elwell 13y agoInteresting fake highlighting.
- mrtksn 13y agoI am pretty sure that I've seen these. I have to say, I admire Steve Jobs in a sense that I admire Frank Underwood character in House of Cards serial.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- djyaz1200 13y agoAgreed, it's a cold world and sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty.
- dmazin 13y agoUh, no. It's more like "what he did was interesting, in the way that a lot admonishing things you should never do are interesting."
- djyaz1200 13y agoYeah, just discouraging to see so many successful people using shady tactics. I think it's a lot more rewarding to succeed without being shady, and maybe a lot of people agree and that's just not newsworthy?
- djyaz1200 13y agoIf tech had a truly free market for talent it would be wild! You'd have top tier coders signing pro athlete sized contracts regularly. I can see why they use patent litigation as a weapon to prevent this, clever and sinister.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoif there was ever a reason for hackers to work out a way to measure the affect good coding has on the bottom line - this is it
- spacehome 13y agoOr good spelling!
- vbs_redlof 13y agoThis would never happen. The market for programmers and athletes are wildly different (winner take all markets).
- adamio 13y agoCouldn't Apple have asked employees to sign a non-compete agreement, before starting work on critical company projects, ? If your goal is to protect the company it seems easier to enforce than a makeshift cartel agreement with other CEOs Also, wasn't the agreement about recruiting being taboo, but its ok to hire cold applicants?
- tristan_juricek 13y agoNon-compete clauses are void in California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause#California
- mcv 13y agoWhich should be a strong hint that accomplishing the exact same thing through another route is just as wrong.
- walshemj 13y agoNon competes are a legal minefield - and quite hard (and expensive) to enforce
- jcampbell1 13y agoBasically all courts agree that the rights of an individual to find employments to support their own needs and their family trumps a company's desire to beat its competitors. If Apple really were worried about losing secrets, they could have paid for garden leave, e.g. pay employees who leave for 6 months to just stay at home.
- CamperBob2 13y agoI hope every developer at Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other companies that are supposedly just "building a defensive bulwark of patents" sees this. You're not building fences or walls for your company. You're building land mines.
- gcb0 13y agobut hey, i will get a $5000 bonus if i just sign this paper. What harm can it do?
- colanderman 13y agoUh, I'm pretty sure any company would be within their rights to fire you for refusing to cooperate with a patent filing. Some contracts (such as mine) even stipulate such cooperation after termination.
- gcb0 13y agoon most positions (anything other than research) it is mostly optional to engage on it. and people get proactive because of the bonus.
- zmmmmm 13y ago> You're building land mines I prefer to think of it as stockpiling toxic nuclear waste. A land mine explodes causing isolated damage to a single unlucky individual one time. Toxic nuclear waste on the other hand poisons an entire city (ie. area of technology) and is pretty much indestructible until its half life (or several of them) expires.
- Crito 13y agoLike nuclear weapons, but without the MAD.
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoI can't be the only one who disapproves of the misuse if the term, "an offer he can't refuse." Its used incorrectly everywhere.
- jusben1369 13y agowell, you could be. Not sure people take the expression that seriously.
- alexeisadeski3 13y agoBoo. At least this author uses it to describe a threat. Most writers deploy the term to describe a really good offer, which grates upon my soul enormously.
- bruceb 13y agoToo bad Palm can't sue Apple for this: http://www.everythingicafe.com/ios-7-multitasking-brings-back-fond-memories-of-webos/ http://www.everythingicafe.com/ios-7-multitasking-brings-bac...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- gcb0 13y agonah, that illustrates it even better. the historical remark was an overblow comparison. Red close buttons vs flick up. simple pages vs full applications. etc... the one now is a 100% copy. nothing changed. the purpose, look (design patent?), interaction, function. everything is exactly the same. The only two changes: - you can't rearrange. (they probably wanted, but ios7 has corner cuts all around) - when you switch apps it annoyingly changes the order making your previous spatial knowledge useless. (probably a last minute 'fix' for not rearranging)
- Steko 13y agoYes it's too bad Palm can't sue Apple for using the "swipable card tabbing" UI that Palm took directly from Safari on the original iPhone. http://origin.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/iphone-review.media/250/safaritab1.jpg http://origin.arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/iphone-review...
- dmazin 13y agoEvery month "admiring Steve Jobs" becomes a stronger heuristic for me on whom to ignore and/or avoid. Not only was he a sociopath who hurt others (read his biography) but he was clearly also a deeply unethical business leader not to be emulated (read this fiasco and also the latter parts of his biography). He held some great humane design principles (read about them from Jef Raskin and Larry Tesler etc who came up with and heralded them) and was able to get tough projects through (like many leaders) of course. But I am afraid that is not what people admire in him.
- jmduke 13y agoIt is possible to admire someone without thinking they're flawless; or, perhaps, to admire certain traits/aspects of someone without admiring them altogether. Michael Jordan was the greatest athlete of his time but an absolute asshole. Martin Luther King had an affair (multiple? I forget.) Musicians in general seem like pretty terrible people, with many notable exceptions.
- chimeracoder 13y agoI think the distinction GP is trying to make is in this sentence: > he was clearly also a deeply unethical business leader not to be emulated MLK's affair has nothing to do with his contributions to the civil rights movement, the latter being the reason that (some) people admire him. But GP is claiming that the very accomplishment for which (some) people admire Steve Jobs (his success) was obtained via unethical means that should not be admired.
- cinquemb 13y agoI think it cuts both ways. People can choose not admire MLK just because of his flaws, regardless if they had anything to deal with his contributions to the civil rights movement. J Cole has a song that talks about this somewhat[0], first two lines in verse one sums this situation up nicely (and applies to Jobs too)… Also, some people may choose to admire Jobs because of how he did whatever took to reach his goals regardless of ethics involved. Evidently when Jobs was alive, he did what he did despite what people thought of him. [0] http://rapgenius.com/J-cole-she-knows-lyrics http://rapgenius.com/J-cole-she-knows-lyrics
- taopao 13y agoWhat a dick.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoI don't get the (mostly posthumous) Jobs bashing that seems to be swelling up. It's seemingly a reaction to the fete'ing he got whilst alive, and I do ended if it is the same people? He was human - and unsurprisingly a mass of contradictions - venal and spiritual, visionary and vicious, successful and a failure. Lets not act surprised he used strong arm tactics to get his way - and let's not get too happy accepting Palms CEO as hero in a story he is telling.
- gcb0 13y agoI did bash him while he was alive too. What is your point? he was human. A criminal human. So what? How committing crimes is spiritual?
- joe_the_user 13y ago"Everyone has contradictions" is not an excuse for any and every instance of bad behavior.
- Iftheshoefits 13y agoHe built an extensive marketing company around aesthetic changes and "innovations" of existing (sometimes decades old) technology and amassed large quantities of wealth and influence in the process, all using illegal and questionably legal tactics. There is almost literally nothing to admire about him, other than his marketing genius (which was, and still is, in my opinion, far and away the best the industry has seen in years, or decades, or perhaps ever).
- Fasebook 13y agoIt's clear in my eyes that Palm did not fail due to market forces. They had the best smart phone at the time, and I purchased one and enjoyed it immensely. I now have an iPhone and I hate it but I have to tolerate it. Take my account for what it's worth, but PalmOS was clearly superior from a productivity standpoint. This is cemented in my mind further by the integration of Palm or Palm-like features into iOS since iOS7. If these threats had any basis, then Palm would be able to sue Apple since now Apple feels entitled to rip off Palm's design decisions, sadly, 'that train has sailed', but now we're left with an uberpowerful Apple who only answers to God.
- cratermoon 13y agoChrist, what an asshole.
- briantakita 13y ago"Wage theft" goes beyond the large tech companies. It it institutionalized by the investors as well. Investors won't invest if employees are paid market value. That's a reason why it's better to be a consultant than an employee. Everybody is trying to manipulate the game to their benefit. C'est la vie.
- ycmike 13y agoI think most people who read the book know that this is far alarming news and frankly surprised more stories have not come out. A couple weeks ago, the stories came out about holding wages down for engineers with Jobs at the center. Steve Jobs is incredible and arguably the greatest entrepreneur of all time. But he is an extreme outlier and anomaly to say the least. He got away with so much being the best. Although one could argue with the way he changed the world we live in, we're not terribly unhappy with news like this.
- krick 13y agoEverybody is talking about Jobs' personality and behavior and if Palm suffered because of that, but for me it's just another example of how wrong the whole legal system is. Instead of saying "we have more guns than you do, so shut up" somebody can just say "we have more money and lawyers than you do, so shut up". So if the system built to control bullying is used for bullying then what it's worth? Ah, thinking of it just depresses me.