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Steve Jobs wasn't even okay with Google hiring former Apple engineers
- l0stb0y 13y agoJust when I thought Jobs couldn't be a bigger scumbag! Someone dig up his grave and make an example of him in front of all of Silicon Valley. It's what he would have done.
- badman_ting 13y agoNot helping.
- sdegutis 13y agoAll opinions aside, I'm pretty sure Steve would have respected the dead.
- martin1b 13y agoI think it's helpful to accurately represent Steve's character. Many of those who love Apple products automatically love Steve. If he wasn't what they thought, it's truthful to reveal it.
- jtfrench 13y agoNow I see what pg was talking about comment moderation. C'mon guys. Let's class it up.
- MBlume 13y agoI'm confused, has "pending comments" not been fully activated yet?
- MBCook 13y agoI have over 1000 karma, and I've never seen it. I know it was given a quick trial after it was first announced, but from my surfing since then it doesn't seem to have been turned back on.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- chc 13y agoNo. He activated it, but after a bunch of people complained, he turned it back off and said moderators could activate it again for special threads that they think need it (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7449857 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7449857).
- paul_f 13y agoYou mean all of the time I spent writing brilliant comments just to get over 1000 karma was unnecessary? Well bah!
- npizzolato 13y agoDownvotes seem to be doing a very good job here. The text is almost completely invisible.
- nezza-_- 13y agoI wonder if in the ongoing process of this 'scandal' any numbers will appear on how many people were rejected because of such agreements. This is such an unfair move towards people who have great talent who might just be better off working for Google instead of Apple or vice versa because of their mindset. I hope for high penalties for the involved companies.
- tsax 13y agoScrew 'penalties.' Have you looked at Wall Street over the past decade? Every month or so there's some 'settlement' with a regulatory agency with some fine or the other for all kinds of issues. Class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly. It would be best if the engineers themselves would get compensated, but not sure how it would be possible to identify the plaintiffs.
- rayiner 13y ago> Class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly Many companies love to use the public's negative sentiment against plaintiffs' lawyers to their favor, by invoking precisely the "class-action lawsuits also enrich the lawyers mostly" canard. This is a sleight of hand. The value of class-action suits is deterrence. Otherwise, it can be very profitable to steal a little bit of money or cause a little bit of harm to a large number of people. Look at it another way: if the alternative is the companies keeping the ill-gotten gains, is that better?
- talmand 13y agoIt's not necessarily sleight of hand when it's often true.
- dllthomas 13y agoSleight of hand is about manipulating attention. What I'm doing with my other hand that you're watching is "true" - what you're seeing that hand do is what it's doing - but you should have been paying attention to my elbow. It's (let's grant) true that the lawyers make most of the money in a class action suit, but they're doing the work and taking much of the risk. Denying a legitimate claim to spite the lawyers is wrong if it means the company keeps whatever incentives lead it to hurt people.
- fidotron 13y agoThere are two things here that are new. Firstly it's got an international angle, and laws around the world do definitely differ on things like poaching and anti-competes. More interesting is Alan Eustace's comment about the value of the Apple relationship to Google, in 2006. Were they really that close? I struggle to think of why they viewed their relationship as of particular strategic importance at that time.
- fiatmoney 13y agoEric Schmidt was on their board.
- sytelus 13y agoApple was putting Google Search and Maps in front and center of iPhone experience among other things. This would be hugely valuable relationship, ofcourse.
- minwcnt5 13y agoThe iPhone didn't come out until 2007.
- mynameisvlad 13y agoThat partnership didn't come about on the day the iPhone was released. It had to have been brewing for quite some time.
- malandrew 13y agoWhat shocked me is that Steve was seen as such a sociopath that he didn't even dare go back and ask why out of fear of messing up whatever relationship he had with Steve and Apple.
- jburwell 13y agoDo no evil?
- gaius 13y agoDo know evil
- laureny 13y ago> This is such an unfair move Which unfair move? Google could have gone ahead and hire these people anyway. Nothing prevented them from doing so except their decision to not risk angering Jobs.
- jjoonathan 13y agoThis isn't about being intimidated by Jobs, it's about colluding to defeat an iterated prisoner's dilemma that lies at the heart of the value proposition of free market economics. They are capable of thinking more than one move ahead. Jobs's wrath was a tiny concern next to the prospect of losing tens or hundreds of millions a year to engineers that could suddenly start playing big companies off one another.
- psbp 13y agoI've read all the released documents, I get the impression that most of this was instigated by Jobs. Sure they played along for this purpose, but the threats and escalation started with the Job's emails in 05.
- PythonicAlpha 13y agoUnfair against the people that deserved those jobs.
- kolbe 13y agoWhat I'm mostly learning though this saga is that an uncomfortable number of SV executives are feckless weaklings in the face of a sociopath like Jobs.
- jarsin 13y agoYep if I ever started a company that became as prominent as google etc I cant imagine a scenario where some ahole ceo of another company like jobs calls me and bitches me out and I just say yes sir and roll over and start doing fraudulent illegal shit like these douches at google did.
- nobbyclark 13y agoIt probably began as a friendly gentlemen a agreement. "Don't steal my engineers. I won't steal yours. Helps keeps costs down. It's all in the shareholders interests right?"
- soperj 13y agoNot really though, when the Palm CEO comes out and says Jobs told him if he didn't agree to do it they'd attack Palm with patent lawsuits.
- ScottBurson 13y agoI don't understand why the Palm CEO didn't just say "Fine. We'll tell everyone why you're doing that." Seems to me the downside to Apple of having their illegal collusion exposed would have had to be far greater than the cost of the engineers Palm could have hired away.
- ascendantlogic 13y agoThe problem is that even as powerful as Google is, Apple eclipses everyone in the money-and-power department, especially in the late 2000's. Also note that having Google services kicked off of the iPhone in the late 2000's simply was not an option for Google. It's easy to do armchair quarterbacking from behind your keyboard but when there's billions of dollars on the line it's not as simple to give someone the middle finger. Note I do not condone the behavior and would have liked to see it turn into a thermonuclear bidding war for engineers just like everyone else. But I sure as hell understand why a lot of these people rolled over. I do like that Facebook told Apple to get fucked though. That was nice to see.
- _greim_ 13y agoCan someone speculate as to why Jobs would have been opposed to this? The only thing I can come up with is that Jobs was trying to minimize the amount of times that "I know a guy at Google" was spoken in the halls of Apple.
- evan_ 13y agoHe might not have wanted engineers to carry knowledge of Apple's programs and projects to a competitor.
- brianpgordon 13y agoPerhaps because they were good engineers, and they would turn a profit for his competitor (Google). If you could make an important decision for your competitor, wouldn't you try to undermine them?
- coldtea 13y agoIsn't it obvious that this is related to the culture of silency around future products at Apple? He wouldn't want Google to know "hey, we're making a new thing called the iPad/whatever and it's like so and so".
- mynameisvlad 13y agoIt's not like Google would know. Those engineers signed NDAs and non-competes, just like practically everyone in the tech world.
- leoc 13y agoDon't forget, by the way, that when Steve Jobs left Apple to found a new company in a line of business perilously close to Apple's he took a number of important Apple people with him, despite giving a misleading promise not to do so.
- MBCook 13y agoJobs had a personal scorched-earth vendetta against Google ever since they stabbed him in the back with Android (as he seems to have viewed it). I imagine if he thought there was any way he could accomplish it he would have banned Google employees from buying Apple products or getting within 1000 feet of an Apple store.
- doktrin 13y agoYour comment doesn't apply here. Android was released in 2008 and these emails were written in 2006. This is not correspondence between companies at war. On the contrary, Apple was leveraging their strategic partnership with Google to block the hires.
- smacktoward 13y agoGoogle acquired Android Inc. in 2005: http://www.webcitation.org/5wk7sIvVb http://www.webcitation.org/5wk7sIvVb So it was before the shape of Google's mobile ambitions became clear, but the acquisition made it pretty obvious that Google had some kind of mobile ambitions.
- doktrin 13y agoThere is nothing to indicate Google & Apple relationships soured before 2007, when Android was unveiled. Prior to that, by all public accounts they enjoyed a relatively amicable partnership. Moreover, simply having a mobile ambition isn't that big of a deal in and of itself. Jobs viewed the close imitation of iOS features as being tantamount to theft. I'm thinking of grid layout, multitouch, swipe to unlock, etc. This is, at least by his own account, what lay behind all the "thermonuclear war" hyperbole.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- spinchange 13y ago>Adding a bit more context to these emails, a 2008 article from TechCrunch details that Hullot and other members from Apple's Paris engineering team were actually given pink slips. So he was not okay with Google hiring former engineers Apple let go. Unbelieveable.
- atomicfiredoll 13y agoI guess that when Jobs told them, "you'll never work in this business again" he was serious.
- cwaniak 13y agoIt might come as a total shock to you, but "this business" doesn't end with Apple and Google.
- autodidakto 13y agoYou're supposed to laugh.
- atomicfiredoll 13y agoNeither do the anti-poaching agreements. Zing! Thanks, I'll be here all night!
- allochthon 13y agoUnbelieveable. At the level of principle, I agree. At the level of practicalities, knowing a little about Steve Jobs, this is believable, unfortunately.
- raghus 13y agoSteve Jobs wasn't okay with Google hiring anyone who ever applied for a job at Apple. Or really, even people with last names that began with "Mac"
- johnrob 13y agoI think these poaching agreements had more to do with IP than salary escalation. The interaction here makes it clear - the employees were no longer with apple, hence there was no hypothetical counter offer to give.
- elwell 13y agoVery good point. I haven't heard anyone mention that facet yet.
- rhizome 13y agoThere are already laws against transmitting IP, there was no agreement necessary to deal with it. Risk-minimization, perhaps, but companies have been dealing with business secrets since before the Industrial Revolution. Frankly, I think an unexamined angle is the fragility of these companies that the agreements imply.
- pbreit 13y agoI'd be surprised if any CEO was OK with former employees going to an arch competitor.
- TheCoelacanth 13y agoIt's perfectly legal for them to not be OK with it. It's not legal to get the competitor to agree not to hire them.
- dannyr 13y agoI hope Apple and Google would get penalized aside from paying penalties. Both companies have plenty of cash so even a $100 million penalty won't make a difference. I don't have any idea though on what they could be penalized with aside from money.
- me2i81 13y agoI always thought collusion was one of those things for which executives could be personally prosecuted and jailed if they were found guilty, but I'd guess it depends on the jurisdiction.
- martin1b 13y agoSounds to me like Steve was a serious control freak.. Article after article, it's the same thing... Don't get me wrong. The stuff his company did was cool, but cheesh..
- qq66 13y agoThe tone that Eustace, a Senior Vice President at Google, uses with Jobs is beyond deferential. "Based on your strong preference that we not hire the ex-Apple engineers, Jean-Marie and I decided not to open a Google Paris engineering center. I appreciate your input into this decision, and your continued support of the Google/Apple partnership." I'd be surprised to see one of my peers use this kind of tone with the President of the United States.
- lclarkmichalek 13y agoThe POTUS seems a tad more sane than Jobs with regards to taking offence to trivial matters.
- frade33 13y agoAs a CEO, this situation is more than complex. There are times when you are working with 'partners' or anyone in the same industry. And you can not avoid collaborating with each other. Apple needed Google, as much as Google needed Apple. However then there is the ugly part, since your partners are in the same industry, they are ultimately your competitors too. It's not about laws or specific rules. It's about human nature, you will be less pissed if someone hooked up with your Ex, but things could be entirely different, if your Ex is hooked up with one of your friends. This is perhaps not a smart analogy, but it's somewhat relevant, remember a time when Eric was on Apple board, and then they went on to launch Android? It certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth and incites a war.
- mempko 13y agoSo what you are saying is that the "everyone acts in their self interest" free market ideology is bullshit and that we are all in fact people after all? Avoiding the ravages of the market is important for profit. Capitalists always hated the market when it comes to their own business...
- frade33 13y agoI am not saying what Apple did was right. Actually this is anti-competition and as a consumer I hate it. However I was making a totally different point, being a CEO of small enterprise myself, I just pointed out, that perhaps I would have the same restrictions in place, but it does not justify them.
- jaunkst 13y agoDon't know a clever way to say this but.. Bureaucracy sucks. List a million reasons why it impedes a happier life.
- slantedview 13y agoWorse than the anti-competitive angle of this story is the idea that Jobs prevented engineers, with families, from obtaining jobs. That's just inexcusable.
- jroseattle 13y agoWow Google, as if your embarrassment couldn't go any further on this story. Not to get dramatic, but we're talking about dignity, integrity, the moral center to understand the difference between right and wrong. Didn't anyone at Google have the ability to get beyond groupthink? All that money and resources and control and influence, and the only thing that mattered to everyone was....getting more of it. How sad for all of you in those companies to act like this and affect the livelihood of others, all in the name of a few bucks. Funny thing about money; it's so damn expensive.
- abc_lisper 13y agoVery well put :) The surprising thing is people tend to get worse as they get richer.