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Essentially, think of the reason for Google to want this. They essentially want to keep their engineers with them for a lower price while preventing other compa

Essentially, think of the reason for Google to want this. They essentially want to keep their engineers with them for a lower price while preventing other companies from offering more attractive positions/salaries which would mean either Google would have to match the salary, or they'd lose the engineer. A lot of hires and promotions are made through these sorts of offers. Steve Jobs famously courted John Sculley from Pepsi. Do you think Marissa Mayer applied for her role at Yahoo? These sort of agreements restrict the market and are unfair to engineers.

EGreg 13y ago
Ok I guess if the market gets out of control with everyone poaching each other's customers blatantly, then any agreement to scale back is considered an illegal cartel? So if for example stores advertise massive discounts in front of each other's premises specifically for the customers about to make a purchase at the competing store, then two stores agreeing to stop and go back to simply letting shoppers DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH is a cartel?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Are you seriously advocating for companies to collude to suppress salaries if they can't handle the heat of market forces? How much, exactly, do you think engineers deserve to get before it becomes "too much", how did you arrive at that number, and do you have a similar number for how much companies should be allowed to make before we just start confiscating it all with a 100% tax rate?
  - EGreg 13y ago
    Looks like you're attacking a straw man. I am not quite sure how you get from companies advertising jobs and accepting employees (but not calling them while they are at work at another company) to salaries being depressed. Can you elaborate on a specific case? Say Jane is happy at company X, but wants to see if she can get a higher salary. She goes outside or surfs online and bam, company Y is hiring. She INQUIRES and APPLIES and says she wants a higher salary. She is offered this salary by company Y. She quits and gets a higher salary. Are you saying salaries are depressed from being EVEN HIGHER from companies actively calling employees of other companies so they can disrupt their projects midstream and lure away those employees? If men actively tried to seduce each other's wives every chance they got, would that improve the deal of the wives?
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      They were specifically agreeing not to engage in normal competitive practices against one another. They were agreeing not to compete with one another for engineers. Jane might be free to offer her services to other companies, but what if she hadn't gone looking? She might not even know it was likely that she could get a better salary, or she might not have spotted a job posting particularly suited to her. The companies suppressed a form of competition to further their own interests, with the inevitable effect that salaries were also suppressed, because the market was not as competitive as it would otherwise have been. That is illegal, and has been for more than a century.
      - EGreg 13y ago
        You haven't explained why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for them and their wives. It's not about offers it's about advertising in unwelcome places. You are claiming that ANY agreement not to engage in unwelcome behavior decreases competition and therefore leads to a worse deal for the other parties. So basically can you take it to its logical conclusion... us agreeing to not destroy each other's reputation through NSA-type sabotage is actually a cartel? Us agreeing not to sabotage each other's operations through corporate espionage before 1995 and other legal means is a cartel?
        sheepmullet 13y ago
        He hasn't explained because it is a ridiculous comparison. Husband and wife relationships are long term loving partnerships. Employer-employee relationships are business transactions. A good husband/wife shares rewards fairly equally. An employer rarely distributes profit equally. A good husband/wife team both have a large degree of autonomy and decision making power. In an employee-employer relationship this power predominantly resides with the employer. A good husband/wife stands by their partner in times of trouble. An employer will happily jettison under-performing employees. A good husband/wife will sacrifice some level of material comfort in order to help their partner improve themselves. Employers will not provide training etc unless it is in their best short term interests. Etc etc etc. Fact is jobs are nothing like marriage. Likewise it is not about advertising in unwelcome places. Google is not advertising to Apple; they are advertising to individuals who happen to work at Apple. The party, Apple, that considers it unwelcome is a third party to the advertising. It is frankly none of their business. It is unwelcome to Apple because it stops them from underpaying their staff. And finally there is a big difference between actions that enhance the market and allow it to operate efficiently and negative market actions. If you are worth $200,000 to Apple but only $100,000 to Google then it is a better allocation of capital for you to work at Apple. If you are worth that money to Google then they can easily counter offer. This aids market efficiency which is the driver of all our economic growth. This is completely different from trying to steal key players simply to harm your competition. But stopping this key player theft is actually easy via legal and ethical market mechanisms (e.g. vesting options, bonuses on successful completion of key deliverables, fully funded non-competes, actually paying market wages etc).
- dlss 13y ago
  Yes? I get the feeling you're being rhetorical, but if I remove the tone in my head then: yes, clearly. > out of control with everyone poaching each other's customers blatantly Corporations shouldn't own customers... Like, the way you poach one is by offering a better deal (more features, better price, better service, etc). I think the way an economist would see the situation you are describing there is a "functioning market" -- the way that an economy improves customers life. If AMD releases a new processor and "steals" a ton of Intel customers that's a good thing. The customers get better processors which they use in their own economic contributions. If Intel steals them back by releasing an even better processor, that's also fantastic. If that process repeats it's not "out of control" -- it's the world becoming better. This dynamic (competition) is the reason why capitalistic societies have done so well in the last two centuries. It's the reason why the quality of the goods you use continues to increase while the price drops. When corporations make an agreement to stop competing on any dimension, that dimension suffers. Maybe you're saying you don't care about this particular dimension. If that was true in general (ie no consumers care about the dimension), then the agreement wouldn't be necessary since competing on that basis would have no effect.
  - EGreg 13y ago
    I guess our disagreement is in the word "offering". I can advertise an offer in many places, but just because I agree not to advertise an offer in a particular place (eg right outside a rival movie theater, and vice versa) doesn't mean I don't OFFER something. It may mean that we agree not to degrade the experience for one another's customers. Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world? Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent. I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors. Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives.
    - dlss 13y ago
      > Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world? Assuming the ad runs profitably, yep. Customers are changing their buying patterns for a reason. > Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent. You answered your own question by including "without your consent". The with consent version does happen though -- it's not unheard of for a knowledgable salesperson to recommend a different product than the one they are selling. > I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors. This is quite a leap from your previous example. Did you grow tired of it? > Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives. Please explain why women get remarried.

EGreg 13y ago

Ok I guess if the market gets out of control with everyone poaching each other's customers blatantly, then any agreement to scale back is considered an illegal cartel? So if for example stores advertise massive discounts in front of each other's premises specifically for the customers about to make a purchase at the competing store, then two stores agreeing to stop and go back to simply letting shoppers DO THEIR OWN RESEARCH is a cartel?

nknighthb 13y ago
Are you seriously advocating for companies to collude to suppress salaries if they can't handle the heat of market forces? How much, exactly, do you think engineers deserve to get before it becomes "too much", how did you arrive at that number, and do you have a similar number for how much companies should be allowed to make before we just start confiscating it all with a 100% tax rate?
- EGreg 13y ago
  Looks like you're attacking a straw man. I am not quite sure how you get from companies advertising jobs and accepting employees (but not calling them while they are at work at another company) to salaries being depressed. Can you elaborate on a specific case? Say Jane is happy at company X, but wants to see if she can get a higher salary. She goes outside or surfs online and bam, company Y is hiring. She INQUIRES and APPLIES and says she wants a higher salary. She is offered this salary by company Y. She quits and gets a higher salary. Are you saying salaries are depressed from being EVEN HIGHER from companies actively calling employees of other companies so they can disrupt their projects midstream and lure away those employees? If men actively tried to seduce each other's wives every chance they got, would that improve the deal of the wives?
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    They were specifically agreeing not to engage in normal competitive practices against one another. They were agreeing not to compete with one another for engineers. Jane might be free to offer her services to other companies, but what if she hadn't gone looking? She might not even know it was likely that she could get a better salary, or she might not have spotted a job posting particularly suited to her. The companies suppressed a form of competition to further their own interests, with the inevitable effect that salaries were also suppressed, because the market was not as competitive as it would otherwise have been. That is illegal, and has been for more than a century.
    - EGreg 13y ago
      You haven't explained why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for them and their wives. It's not about offers it's about advertising in unwelcome places. You are claiming that ANY agreement not to engage in unwelcome behavior decreases competition and therefore leads to a worse deal for the other parties. So basically can you take it to its logical conclusion... us agreeing to not destroy each other's reputation through NSA-type sabotage is actually a cartel? Us agreeing not to sabotage each other's operations through corporate espionage before 1995 and other legal means is a cartel?
      - sheepmullet 13y ago
        He hasn't explained because it is a ridiculous comparison. Husband and wife relationships are long term loving partnerships. Employer-employee relationships are business transactions. A good husband/wife shares rewards fairly equally. An employer rarely distributes profit equally. A good husband/wife team both have a large degree of autonomy and decision making power. In an employee-employer relationship this power predominantly resides with the employer. A good husband/wife stands by their partner in times of trouble. An employer will happily jettison under-performing employees. A good husband/wife will sacrifice some level of material comfort in order to help their partner improve themselves. Employers will not provide training etc unless it is in their best short term interests. Etc etc etc. Fact is jobs are nothing like marriage. Likewise it is not about advertising in unwelcome places. Google is not advertising to Apple; they are advertising to individuals who happen to work at Apple. The party, Apple, that considers it unwelcome is a third party to the advertising. It is frankly none of their business. It is unwelcome to Apple because it stops them from underpaying their staff. And finally there is a big difference between actions that enhance the market and allow it to operate efficiently and negative market actions. If you are worth $200,000 to Apple but only $100,000 to Google then it is a better allocation of capital for you to work at Apple. If you are worth that money to Google then they can easily counter offer. This aids market efficiency which is the driver of all our economic growth. This is completely different from trying to steal key players simply to harm your competition. But stopping this key player theft is actually easy via legal and ethical market mechanisms (e.g. vesting options, bonuses on successful completion of key deliverables, fully funded non-competes, actually paying market wages etc).
dlss 13y ago
Yes? I get the feeling you're being rhetorical, but if I remove the tone in my head then: yes, clearly. > out of control with everyone poaching each other's customers blatantly Corporations shouldn't own customers... Like, the way you poach one is by offering a better deal (more features, better price, better service, etc). I think the way an economist would see the situation you are describing there is a "functioning market" -- the way that an economy improves customers life. If AMD releases a new processor and "steals" a ton of Intel customers that's a good thing. The customers get better processors which they use in their own economic contributions. If Intel steals them back by releasing an even better processor, that's also fantastic. If that process repeats it's not "out of control" -- it's the world becoming better. This dynamic (competition) is the reason why capitalistic societies have done so well in the last two centuries. It's the reason why the quality of the goods you use continues to increase while the price drops. When corporations make an agreement to stop competing on any dimension, that dimension suffers. Maybe you're saying you don't care about this particular dimension. If that was true in general (ie no consumers care about the dimension), then the agreement wouldn't be necessary since competing on that basis would have no effect.
- EGreg 13y ago
  I guess our disagreement is in the word "offering". I can advertise an offer in many places, but just because I agree not to advertise an offer in a particular place (eg right outside a rival movie theater, and vice versa) doesn't mean I don't OFFER something. It may mean that we agree not to degrade the experience for one another's customers. Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world? Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent. I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors. Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives.
  - dlss 13y ago
    > Are you saying that a world where people are hit with AMD ads as soon as they exit the Intel store is a better world? Assuming the ad runs profitably, yep. Customers are changing their buying patterns for a reason. > Well why don't companies go the other way then -- agree to tell each other every time you purchase something and share your purchase data without your consent. You answered your own question by including "without your consent". The with consent version does happen though -- it's not unheard of for a knowledgable salesperson to recommend a different product than the one they are selling. > I hope you like to receive spam mail every time you buy something, from competitors. This is quite a leap from your previous example. Did you grow tired of it? > Please explain why men seducing each other's wives at every opportunity would lead to better deals for wives. Please explain why women get remarried.