8 ms·

Although I get that these sorts of agreements may well have been illegal and unethical, all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to

by simon_ 13y ago

Although I get that these sorts of agreements may well have been illegal and unethical, all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me. Try putting yourself in Eric Schmidt's shoes: from his perspective, the greed of an individual employee to generate recruiting commissions by violating a strict policy endangered a key strategic relationship. This could obviously not be tolerated and the lack of a strong response would make enforcing the whole landscape of mission critical policies harder. These guys HAVE TO think of the system before the individual or the system will not work. And in general, in any industry and any role, if you start a fire that the senior management team 10 levels up has to put out... you will expect harsh treatment.

sremani 13y ago
The behavior is not acceptable. This is a cartel to "fix" the wages of workers - esp. when these tech companies claim their workers are the most important resource. Now, I am not surprised the book price fixing Apple did with the publishers. But both Apple and Google get a pass - think if it is done by Oracle or MSFT, well we would be talking about Evil Empire and Death-star
- Piskvorrr 13y ago
  Yup. "It was St.Steve of Cupertino, and the Do-No-Evil Company Inc., so that makes it quite all right."
- mikeash 13y ago
  What do you mean "get a pass"? This story has been on and off HN's front page for months and the companies involved, including Apple and Google, have received nothing but strong criticism every time.
  - davidw 13y ago
    > What do you mean "get a pass"? This is what he's referring to: > all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me I'm no "occupy wall street" fan, but I think taking millions of dollars from the pockets of a lot of workers is very much something to be outraged about.
    - kefka 13y ago
      It really comes down to this: If you are working, you don't want to jeopardize your job with a lawsuit against your employer. Lest you do, you get blackballed. If you aren't working, you cannot afford a lawyer. End of discussion. Perhaps the Justice department can do something... But then again, I'm sure it will be smoothed out with greased palms to both parties.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      He's specifically talking about outrage over the attitudes, as in how the execs handled this one incident. His entire point is that the attitudes displayed in this e-mail chain are unrelated to the larger wage-fixing scheme. Of all the discussion forums on the internet, I'd expect HN to be one where it's possible to discuss things rationally and discuss individual aspects of an issue separate from the whole in a reasonable manner, without being called out for failing to express the proper quantity of outrage at every step. Of course, this is completely naive of me as it ends up being proven wrong over and over.
      - davidw 13y ago
        I get where you are coming from and appreciate the desire to keep things rational. But sometimes there is a time and place to get angry about things that are wrong. Everyone has their own issues, and I can see that this particular one wouldn't get everyone fired up, but it certainly flips my bits: they summarily fired and "made a public example" of a person for not following an illegal policy.
        mikeash 13y ago
        I can understand getting upset about this. I personally see it as a sort of "double dipping" on outrage in this case, but that's just a difference of opinion. My main point here is simply that not getting outraged at the attitudes displayed here is far from giving these companies a pass on what they've done.
    - antimagic 13y ago
      I agree with Mike here. Bear in mind that we're talking about the attitude of the execs, not the substantive issue at hand. Imagine if the issue at hand had been a Google employee deliberately breaking Google Maps for iPhone (back in the day when Google and Apple got on fine). Would anyone be surprised / outraged by Google firing the employee, and Steve Jobs forwarding the email informing him to Scott Forestall with a smiley face? I would think not. Now, just to be extra clear, I agree with most people on HN that the substantive issue of non-poaching agreements is not acceptable. I expect all companies that were involved to be justifiably raked over the coals for it. But Steve Jobs responding with a smiley when he receives confirmation that the agreed-upon policy has been enforced? Total non-issue.
- javert 13y ago
  Agreements between companies to not recruit each others' workers are not actually immoral. There are many immoral laws, and whatever law is being thrown at them in this case is one such. I also think it was immoral to stop MSFT from selling their product as they saw fit---with Windows and IE bundled. So you can't accuse me of being partial to one set of companies over another.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Collusion is, if not immoral, at least inconsistent with free markets.
    - Ygg2 13y ago
      Not, really. In a free market, everything is allowed, no? There is no arbiter to enforce any rules.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        You cannot have efficient free markets without rules, because of the presence of externalities and monopolies. That's Econ 101. Beyond that, I'd argue you can't have markets at all without rules. Markets do not generally develop in situations where killing your counter-party and taking his stuff is allowed.
        jeffcox 13y ago
        >You cannot have efficient free markets without rules Wouldn't that be the most efficient free market? One in which only the most brutal and powerful ideas and companies prevail (with money)?
        rayiner 13y ago
        An efficient free market maximizes production. Markets in which companies can externalize costs or engage in monopoly behavior produce less than markets in which these behaviors are prevented. "Free market" is not synonymous with "anything goes." It's a specific economic (rather than ideological) concept. Most economists believe that certain rules and restrictions are necessary to have any functioning market at all.
- jonas21 13y ago
  > But both Apple and Google get a pass Seems like the opposite. Apple and Google are being called out for their behavior on a regular basis in the tech press, while the other companies named in the suit (Adobe, Intuit, etc.) are barely mentioned.
  - pvarangot 13y ago
    The other companies don't get the online press their well deserved pageranks and clicks in news aggregators that Apple and Google do when used in headlines.
- roc 13y ago
  First, Apple and Google haven't been getting "a pass" they've been called out as the primary perpetrators every single time this story has come up. Which has been many times, for several months now. Second, you don't need your hypothetical: Oracle and MSFT were both involved. And, if anything, they're getting "a pass" because their involvement has always been a secondary data point under the headlines about Apple and Google. In any case, if the board or geeks in general had any special reserve of outrage for those two companies, that should have surfaced by now, right? So where is it?
  - blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
    Suck it bro...Apple and Google have had this crazy honeymoon with the press for a long time. No ones beating up on MS or ORA because it's not news that they are companies that do that kind of thing. Apple and Google have been selling this image of being liberal and touchy feely and "not evil"...its a fucking joke and an insult to peoples intelligence.
rayiner 13y ago
The system works just fine without using peoples' livelihoods as a mechanism to "make a public example." At the companies I have worked, firings happen, of course, but it's something people talk about in hushed tones because frankly people are embarrassed to have to do it. This shame is virtuous.
pms 13y ago
There is a bigger system than Google/Facebook here: all the engineers that work for these and other companies. It's not just this one person who is affected. There are all these engineers whose wages and opportunities are lower that they could be.
- hkphooey 13y ago
  Exactly, you could call it the trickle-down effect. If you apply for a job at a start-up they can say "Hey, an engineer at Google makes this much, you're not as good, so you're going to make 25% less, and since this is a start-up we're going to take another 25% off.". Look at AngelList and the salaries being offered. Isn't is strange that the majority of salaries top out at the same amount, and the amount of equity on offer seems to be the same too. Smells like something fishy going at the VCs to price fix wages of start-up worker bees...
jadc 13y ago
Say what? "The greed of an individual employee". Said employee is a recruiter, her job is to source people. Can hardly be called a case of greed especially when considering the whole context and greed on the part of the participating companies. The outrage over the attitude of the execs in question is not so much because we don't understand business. Yes, we get it. This endangered a strategic relationship and deserves a strong response. The outrage is due to the nonchalance and utter arrogance shown by these execs, which were in previous times considered as inspirational leaders and models to aspire to. I personally think it is important to show our outrage and reaction over the attitude of the execs because many folks would like to work for Google, Apple, etc... This gets them thinking about whether they'd really like to work for such companies and under such leaders.
smtddr 13y ago
Agreed. I understand the concept of wage-fixing that's happening here, but I also see the vemon that's laced in all the articles written about it to make Google/Apple execs seem as evil as possible. I get it, they've been doing stuff under the table and people are losing their jobs needlessly... but it doesn't need to be stated in this manner. And it hasn't left my mind that even with all these wage-fixing complaints, those of us in the soft-engineering field are still enjoying the current good times and we still have SF-gentrification issues, and all the outside-of-tech people, who have real problems. This whole thing is beginning to lose perspective. Because seriously, we're doing...pretty...freakin'...well these days on our average 6 figure salaries. The real victims are people like the HR-lady who lost her job.
- lhc- 13y ago
  Engineers are doing well, for sure. But compared to the profits of Google and Apple and their executives, engineer salaries are a joke. And yet, these cartels did not help to support the HR lady who lost her job, but instead served to further enrich the obscene wealth of the executives in charge of these companies.
talmand 13y ago
So the person that was fired was the greedy one and Eric Schmidt was the victim? Just wow. I can see why you feel the outrage over this is overblown. I personally think there isn't enough outrage.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > I can see why you feel the outrage over this is overblown. I personally think there isn't enough outrage. Agreed. Apple and Google were actively colluding against their workers.
- mturmon 13y ago
  The point of the comment to which you're replying is to be outraged at the right thing. Be outraged at the no-compete policy (it's illegal)! Don't be outraged at the efficient enforcement of the policy. Would it be better if the recruiter had just been given a PIP instead of being terminated? And Eric Schmidt had e-mailed to Steve Jobs, "Sorry, won't happen again, the employee is on probation and I personally lectured them." No, because the policy would still be in effect. The swift response from the top of both companies does tell us something, though. It tells us, for one thing, how much this had to do with a person-to-person deal between Schmidt and Jobs. It also shows how Google was anxious to demonstrate its faith to the agreement. The trust must have been pretty fragile if Google was so anxious to demonstrate it was not misplaced. The problem with the OP is that it focuses anger on the efficient enforcement aspect. That's a side issue.
  - TuringTest 13y ago
    ''Be outraged at the no-compete policy (it's illegal)! Don't be outraged at the efficient enforcement of the policy.'' It's reasonable to think that both things are not at all unrelated. In a mindset that considers "terminating an employee's career within the hour with no recourse" an efficient enforcement of policy, "colluding to ensure low wages" can be seen as achieving the same kind of efficiency for the company.
  - talmand 13y ago
    I think I'm fine with feeling outrage at the efficient enforcement of policy. Doing something bad efficiently doesn't suddenly make it good.
grovulent 13y ago
You say you understand that these agreements are illegal and unethical and at the same time admonish us to put ourselves in the shoes of those people who engaged in this illegal and unethical behaviour. Okay. Let's do that shall we? I am Eric Schmidt. I have made a conscious decision to collude illegally in order to suppress the wages of my own employees because I frankly don't think us folks at the top are getting enough of the pie. So we're going to take more - not through our talent, but through our power. Because fuck everyone below us. They're clearly greedy (your word) so they'll get what we give them.
- blktiger 13y ago
  I'm not entirely certain that's the motive... I mean, as a CEO it is your responsibility to do what is best for the _company_. If you can save the company a lot of money in wages and prevent top talent from leaving then it's your responsibility to do so. Not that I think what they did is ethical or legal, but I'm not entirely sure that greed is the motive here.
  - grovulent 13y ago
    You may be right. I apologise for any inaccuracies in my shoe-placing. It's as good as I can do when trying to empathize with psychopathic assholes.
    - vixen99 13y ago
      Overkill to let him off. 'psychopathic' almost implies internally generated impulses beyond conscious control. I suspect 'asshole' sums it up nicely.
      - gcb0 13y ago
        You seem to have missed the irony. To paraphrase jobs: :)
  - mcv 13y ago
    And what if you can make the company a lot of money by selling crack to kids? Or embezzling money from your customers' bank accounts? Or by cheating on your tax? As a CEO it is your responsiblity to do what is best for the company _within the law_.
incision 13y ago
>"Although I get that these sorts of agreements may well have been illegal and unethical, all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me." I wouldn't quite say that... I believe you're absolutely correct about the strategic concern, the act and the result is easy to understand. What's really distasteful is the tone from all parties. The whole exchange is dripping with polite passive-aggressive nastiness, boot clicking and ass-covering. It's possible to be pragmatic and decent about it.
mattmaroon 13y ago
Agree. If you assumed the non-solicitation policy were legal and ethical, then the rest of the actions make sense. (Of course they're neither.) Also, I think the article takes a lot of liberties with descriptions. I didn't see military glee. And Steve's response struck me as that of a guy who sends thousands of emails a day and got something he wanted resolved, not schadenfreude.
ams6110 13y ago
Agree. Employees get summarily fired for violating policies every day, in every business sector. Try showing up late for work at McDonalds. The second or third time you do it, bye-bye. Policies don't mean much if they are not enforced. I'm not defending the policy in this case, but given that it existed, and was apparently very clearly communicated to employees that it was a "zero-tolerance" deal, Google could hardly have reacted in any other way.
jsight 13y ago
> Try putting yourself in Eric Schmidt's shoes: from his perspective, the greed of an individual employee to generate recruiting commissions by violating a strict policy endangered a key strategic relationship. If said employee were aware of the policy, then he would surely no that this candidate was non-hireable, right? Firing for that sounds like a mistake. If we take the article at face value, his firing certainly does not look justifiable. On the other hand, the emails do not make it clear as to whether this was the recruiter's only policy violation.
Lagged2Death 13y ago
>These guys HAVE TO think of the system before the individual or the system will not work. "The system" being an illegal no-compete agreement, an unethical, immoral boot on the face of Schmidt's own people. It's a system in the sense that it was a systematic process of betrayal. That's what he was protecting. That's what couldn't work if he put individuals ahead of "the system." This isn't just a betrayal of the employees of Google and Apple et al. This is a betrayal of the very free-market, capitalistic, "greed is good" Randroid principles these Master of the Universe types have touted and have in turn been celebrated for. Speaking for myself, I'm not surprised. I don't think that ultra-free-market stuff works. This is what happens again and again; once someone gets ahead in a free market, they turn around and try to cement their position by making the market less free. But I can see why so many others are so angry. These guys, Jobs and Schmidt and Brin, were heroes to a lot of people, especially here on HN. But it turns out they didn't actually believe in the principles we thought they embodied. It's one of those moments behind the adage "Never meet your heroes."
parasight 13y ago
Shouldn't Google fire Eric Schmidt now using your logic?
bane 13y ago
The right way to think about the system would be to simply expand the acceptable hiring pool. The hyper selectivity that big SV companies use for hiring artificially limits the pool of possible applicants and drives up wages. Expanding the pool would solve this problem without going into illegal practices.
lsaferite 13y ago
Ok, as I'm still not able to find anywhere where a legal ruling says a 'do not call' is illegal, could someone please direct me to said ruling? I get that part of what they were doing has been deemed illegal, namely the 'do not hire' restrictions, but a 'do not call' list doesn't seem like it could possibly be illegal.

by simon_ 13y ago

sremani 13y ago

The behavior is not acceptable. This is a cartel to "fix" the wages of workers - esp. when these tech companies claim their workers are the most important resource. Now, I am not surprised the book price fixing Apple did with the publishers. But both Apple and Google get a pass - think if it is done by Oracle or MSFT, well we would be talking about Evil Empire and Death-star

Piskvorrr 13y ago
Yup. "It was St.Steve of Cupertino, and the Do-No-Evil Company Inc., so that makes it quite all right."
mikeash 13y ago
What do you mean "get a pass"? This story has been on and off HN's front page for months and the companies involved, including Apple and Google, have received nothing but strong criticism every time.
- davidw 13y ago
  > What do you mean "get a pass"? This is what he's referring to: > all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me I'm no "occupy wall street" fan, but I think taking millions of dollars from the pockets of a lot of workers is very much something to be outraged about.
  - kefka 13y ago
    It really comes down to this: If you are working, you don't want to jeopardize your job with a lawsuit against your employer. Lest you do, you get blackballed. If you aren't working, you cannot afford a lawyer. End of discussion. Perhaps the Justice department can do something... But then again, I'm sure it will be smoothed out with greased palms to both parties.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    He's specifically talking about outrage over the attitudes, as in how the execs handled this one incident. His entire point is that the attitudes displayed in this e-mail chain are unrelated to the larger wage-fixing scheme. Of all the discussion forums on the internet, I'd expect HN to be one where it's possible to discuss things rationally and discuss individual aspects of an issue separate from the whole in a reasonable manner, without being called out for failing to express the proper quantity of outrage at every step. Of course, this is completely naive of me as it ends up being proven wrong over and over.
    - davidw 13y ago
      I get where you are coming from and appreciate the desire to keep things rational. But sometimes there is a time and place to get angry about things that are wrong. Everyone has their own issues, and I can see that this particular one wouldn't get everyone fired up, but it certainly flips my bits: they summarily fired and "made a public example" of a person for not following an illegal policy.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        I can understand getting upset about this. I personally see it as a sort of "double dipping" on outrage in this case, but that's just a difference of opinion. My main point here is simply that not getting outraged at the attitudes displayed here is far from giving these companies a pass on what they've done.
  - antimagic 13y ago
    I agree with Mike here. Bear in mind that we're talking about the attitude of the execs, not the substantive issue at hand. Imagine if the issue at hand had been a Google employee deliberately breaking Google Maps for iPhone (back in the day when Google and Apple got on fine). Would anyone be surprised / outraged by Google firing the employee, and Steve Jobs forwarding the email informing him to Scott Forestall with a smiley face? I would think not. Now, just to be extra clear, I agree with most people on HN that the substantive issue of non-poaching agreements is not acceptable. I expect all companies that were involved to be justifiably raked over the coals for it. But Steve Jobs responding with a smiley when he receives confirmation that the agreed-upon policy has been enforced? Total non-issue.
javert 13y ago
Agreements between companies to not recruit each others' workers are not actually immoral. There are many immoral laws, and whatever law is being thrown at them in this case is one such. I also think it was immoral to stop MSFT from selling their product as they saw fit---with Windows and IE bundled. So you can't accuse me of being partial to one set of companies over another.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Collusion is, if not immoral, at least inconsistent with free markets.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    Not, really. In a free market, everything is allowed, no? There is no arbiter to enforce any rules.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      You cannot have efficient free markets without rules, because of the presence of externalities and monopolies. That's Econ 101. Beyond that, I'd argue you can't have markets at all without rules. Markets do not generally develop in situations where killing your counter-party and taking his stuff is allowed.
      - jeffcox 13y ago
        >You cannot have efficient free markets without rules Wouldn't that be the most efficient free market? One in which only the most brutal and powerful ideas and companies prevail (with money)?
        rayiner 13y ago
        An efficient free market maximizes production. Markets in which companies can externalize costs or engage in monopoly behavior produce less than markets in which these behaviors are prevented. "Free market" is not synonymous with "anything goes." It's a specific economic (rather than ideological) concept. Most economists believe that certain rules and restrictions are necessary to have any functioning market at all.
jonas21 13y ago
> But both Apple and Google get a pass Seems like the opposite. Apple and Google are being called out for their behavior on a regular basis in the tech press, while the other companies named in the suit (Adobe, Intuit, etc.) are barely mentioned.
- pvarangot 13y ago
  The other companies don't get the online press their well deserved pageranks and clicks in news aggregators that Apple and Google do when used in headlines.
roc 13y ago
First, Apple and Google haven't been getting "a pass" they've been called out as the primary perpetrators every single time this story has come up. Which has been many times, for several months now. Second, you don't need your hypothetical: Oracle and MSFT were both involved. And, if anything, they're getting "a pass" because their involvement has always been a secondary data point under the headlines about Apple and Google. In any case, if the board or geeks in general had any special reserve of outrage for those two companies, that should have surfaced by now, right? So where is it?
- blahbl4hblahtoo 13y ago
  Suck it bro...Apple and Google have had this crazy honeymoon with the press for a long time. No ones beating up on MS or ORA because it's not news that they are companies that do that kind of thing. Apple and Google have been selling this image of being liberal and touchy feely and "not evil"...its a fucking joke and an insult to peoples intelligence.

rayiner 13y ago

The system works just fine without using peoples' livelihoods as a mechanism to "make a public example." At the companies I have worked, firings happen, of course, but it's something people talk about in hushed tones because frankly people are embarrassed to have to do it. This shame is virtuous.

pms 13y ago

There is a bigger system than Google/Facebook here: all the engineers that work for these and other companies. It's not just this one person who is affected. There are all these engineers whose wages and opportunities are lower that they could be.

hkphooey 13y ago
Exactly, you could call it the trickle-down effect. If you apply for a job at a start-up they can say "Hey, an engineer at Google makes this much, you're not as good, so you're going to make 25% less, and since this is a start-up we're going to take another 25% off.". Look at AngelList and the salaries being offered. Isn't is strange that the majority of salaries top out at the same amount, and the amount of equity on offer seems to be the same too. Smells like something fishy going at the VCs to price fix wages of start-up worker bees...

jadc 13y ago

Say what? "The greed of an individual employee". Said employee is a recruiter, her job is to source people. Can hardly be called a case of greed especially when considering the whole context and greed on the part of the participating companies. The outrage over the attitude of the execs in question is not so much because we don't understand business. Yes, we get it. This endangered a strategic relationship and deserves a strong response. The outrage is due to the nonchalance and utter arrogance shown by these execs, which were in previous times considered as inspirational leaders and models to aspire to. I personally think it is important to show our outrage and reaction over the attitude of the execs because many folks would like to work for Google, Apple, etc... This gets them thinking about whether they'd really like to work for such companies and under such leaders.

smtddr 13y ago

Agreed. I understand the concept of wage-fixing that's happening here, but I also see the vemon that's laced in all the articles written about it to make Google/Apple execs seem as evil as possible. I get it, they've been doing stuff under the table and people are losing their jobs needlessly... but it doesn't need to be stated in this manner. And it hasn't left my mind that even with all these wage-fixing complaints, those of us in the soft-engineering field are still enjoying the current good times and we still have SF-gentrification issues, and all the outside-of-tech people, who have real problems. This whole thing is beginning to lose perspective. Because seriously, we're doing...pretty...freakin'...well these days on our average 6 figure salaries. The real victims are people like the HR-lady who lost her job.

lhc- 13y ago
Engineers are doing well, for sure. But compared to the profits of Google and Apple and their executives, engineer salaries are a joke. And yet, these cartels did not help to support the HR lady who lost her job, but instead served to further enrich the obscene wealth of the executives in charge of these companies.

talmand 13y ago

So the person that was fired was the greedy one and Eric Schmidt was the victim? Just wow. I can see why you feel the outrage over this is overblown. I personally think there isn't enough outrage.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
> I can see why you feel the outrage over this is overblown. I personally think there isn't enough outrage. Agreed. Apple and Google were actively colluding against their workers.
mturmon 13y ago
The point of the comment to which you're replying is to be outraged at the right thing. Be outraged at the no-compete policy (it's illegal)! Don't be outraged at the efficient enforcement of the policy. Would it be better if the recruiter had just been given a PIP instead of being terminated? And Eric Schmidt had e-mailed to Steve Jobs, "Sorry, won't happen again, the employee is on probation and I personally lectured them." No, because the policy would still be in effect. The swift response from the top of both companies does tell us something, though. It tells us, for one thing, how much this had to do with a person-to-person deal between Schmidt and Jobs. It also shows how Google was anxious to demonstrate its faith to the agreement. The trust must have been pretty fragile if Google was so anxious to demonstrate it was not misplaced. The problem with the OP is that it focuses anger on the efficient enforcement aspect. That's a side issue.
- TuringTest 13y ago
  ''Be outraged at the no-compete policy (it's illegal)! Don't be outraged at the efficient enforcement of the policy.'' It's reasonable to think that both things are not at all unrelated. In a mindset that considers "terminating an employee's career within the hour with no recourse" an efficient enforcement of policy, "colluding to ensure low wages" can be seen as achieving the same kind of efficiency for the company.
- talmand 13y ago
  I think I'm fine with feeling outrage at the efficient enforcement of policy. Doing something bad efficiently doesn't suddenly make it good.

grovulent 13y ago

You say you understand that these agreements are illegal and unethical and at the same time admonish us to put ourselves in the shoes of those people who engaged in this illegal and unethical behaviour. Okay. Let's do that shall we? I am Eric Schmidt. I have made a conscious decision to collude illegally in order to suppress the wages of my own employees because I frankly don't think us folks at the top are getting enough of the pie. So we're going to take more - not through our talent, but through our power. Because fuck everyone below us. They're clearly greedy (your word) so they'll get what we give them.

blktiger 13y ago
I'm not entirely certain that's the motive... I mean, as a CEO it is your responsibility to do what is best for the _company_. If you can save the company a lot of money in wages and prevent top talent from leaving then it's your responsibility to do so. Not that I think what they did is ethical or legal, but I'm not entirely sure that greed is the motive here.
- grovulent 13y ago
  You may be right. I apologise for any inaccuracies in my shoe-placing. It's as good as I can do when trying to empathize with psychopathic assholes.
  - vixen99 13y ago
    Overkill to let him off. 'psychopathic' almost implies internally generated impulses beyond conscious control. I suspect 'asshole' sums it up nicely.
    - gcb0 13y ago
      You seem to have missed the irony. To paraphrase jobs: :)
- mcv 13y ago
  And what if you can make the company a lot of money by selling crack to kids? Or embezzling money from your customers' bank accounts? Or by cheating on your tax? As a CEO it is your responsiblity to do what is best for the company _within the law_.

incision 13y ago

>"Although I get that these sorts of agreements may well have been illegal and unethical, all this outrage over the attitudes of the executives seems overblown to me." I wouldn't quite say that... I believe you're absolutely correct about the strategic concern, the act and the result is easy to understand. What's really distasteful is the tone from all parties. The whole exchange is dripping with polite passive-aggressive nastiness, boot clicking and ass-covering. It's possible to be pragmatic and decent about it.

mattmaroon 13y ago

Agree. If you assumed the non-solicitation policy were legal and ethical, then the rest of the actions make sense. (Of course they're neither.) Also, I think the article takes a lot of liberties with descriptions. I didn't see military glee. And Steve's response struck me as that of a guy who sends thousands of emails a day and got something he wanted resolved, not schadenfreude.

ams6110 13y ago

Agree. Employees get summarily fired for violating policies every day, in every business sector. Try showing up late for work at McDonalds. The second or third time you do it, bye-bye. Policies don't mean much if they are not enforced. I'm not defending the policy in this case, but given that it existed, and was apparently very clearly communicated to employees that it was a "zero-tolerance" deal, Google could hardly have reacted in any other way.

jsight 13y ago

> Try putting yourself in Eric Schmidt's shoes: from his perspective, the greed of an individual employee to generate recruiting commissions by violating a strict policy endangered a key strategic relationship. If said employee were aware of the policy, then he would surely no that this candidate was non-hireable, right? Firing for that sounds like a mistake. If we take the article at face value, his firing certainly does not look justifiable. On the other hand, the emails do not make it clear as to whether this was the recruiter's only policy violation.

Lagged2Death 13y ago

>These guys HAVE TO think of the system before the individual or the system will not work. "The system" being an illegal no-compete agreement, an unethical, immoral boot on the face of Schmidt's own people. It's a system in the sense that it was a systematic process of betrayal. That's what he was protecting. That's what couldn't work if he put individuals ahead of "the system." This isn't just a betrayal of the employees of Google and Apple et al. This is a betrayal of the very free-market, capitalistic, "greed is good" Randroid principles these Master of the Universe types have touted and have in turn been celebrated for. Speaking for myself, I'm not surprised. I don't think that ultra-free-market stuff works. This is what happens again and again; once someone gets ahead in a free market, they turn around and try to cement their position by making the market less free. But I can see why so many others are so angry. These guys, Jobs and Schmidt and Brin, were heroes to a lot of people, especially here on HN. But it turns out they didn't actually believe in the principles we thought they embodied. It's one of those moments behind the adage "Never meet your heroes."

parasight 13y ago

Shouldn't Google fire Eric Schmidt now using your logic?

bane 13y ago

The right way to think about the system would be to simply expand the acceptable hiring pool. The hyper selectivity that big SV companies use for hiring artificially limits the pool of possible applicants and drives up wages. Expanding the pool would solve this problem without going into illegal practices.

lsaferite 13y ago

Ok, as I'm still not able to find anywhere where a legal ruling says a 'do not call' is illegal, could someone please direct me to said ruling? I get that part of what they were doing has been deemed illegal, namely the 'do not hire' restrictions, but a 'do not call' list doesn't seem like it could possibly be illegal.