3 ms·

What 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.

by kolbe 13y ago

jarsin 13y ago
Yep 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 ago
  It 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 ago
    Not 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 ago
      I 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 ago
  The 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.
  - yourapostasy 13y ago
    There some of us engineers go again, playing checkers for temporary baubles with those who play chess and for keeps and the deed of the land the game is played upon, never mind the milk and cow. If the most the fevered imaginations some engineers can come up with on an upside scenario of this wage-fixing affair is "thermonuclear bidding war for engineers", then this subset of engineers as a group don't believe the power of their own constructions, and deserve to lose control over what they make. This period we live in today is where we are still building the nascent infrastructure of what is likely going to be looked upon as a seminal and epochal change in the species' economic (at least, if not other areas of human endeavor) development in the far (10+ generations) future. Another impactful change like this won't happen again for a long, long time; this is mass adoption of the printing press change, modern banking practices establishment type change. Entire Great Law of the Iroquois spans of time (seven generations) pass without these types of changes. We would likely need some development like perfecting self-sustaining fusion power or Drexlerian nanotech to arrive at such a pivotal moment again. If you do not want to bemoan in late life regrets for not seizing this historical moment and for leaving it to non-technical people to seize it instead, then the wage-fixing should be a clear signal that what we build has far more significance than technical accomplishment in exchange for temporary compensation. There is vast wealth being constructed here, and lots of non-engineers are intent upon seizing control of it. Wage-fixing is a tool of such control, but not in the obvious manner. The subtext not explored sufficiently is the wage-fixing serves a larger purpose: wages high enough to keep employees satisfied to stay on (and the wage-fixing "encourages" them to stay in one place), but not quite high enough to cause too many of them to literally afford the opportunity to strike out on their own and capture a slice of the wealth being created by using their creative efforts to build their own piece of the emerging wealth. That to me is the more meaningful aspect of control about the wage-fixing. The mentality of the top leadership at these companies is decidedly not cornucopian-oriented in the time frames they operate in when thinking about employee compensation, so leaving and successfully building anything on your own is a straight zero sum loss to them (because time preference differ between the parties). I don't need to be telling HN readers this as here lies gathered an immense pool of people breaking out and building their own piece of the future wealth horizon; that's preaching to the choir. But the wider technical audience needs to be informed about this battle for control over a future wealth source of humanity.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  It was in Google's best interest to make the agreement and to enforce it aggressively. It helped keep salaries down and it reduced the flow of proprietary info out of the company. I'm not saying that's right--because it's not. I'm just saying, thinking that Apple pushed Google around is the wrong reading. Google did what they did because they wanted to.
GVIrish 13y ago
I don't think it's necessarily that other SV executives were weaklings, it's that they thought the non-poaching agreement was in their interests too. Jobs was definitely cunning and ruthless but he wasn't all brute force, he set up a deal whereby these other companies would see things his way due to their own greed. I think that scenario played out a couple of times in Jobs' career. He would do something ruthless or somewhat distasteful, but because the people he was pushing his idea on stood to profit in some way they agreed with it, even though it enriched Jobs a lot more than it enriched them.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- lambdasquirrel 13y ago
  On the other side of things, it provides a nice reason to not hire those people. I've seen managers take it on as a bit of "rationalization debt." If you can't give a good reason for something, find something or someone to blame it on.
- derefr 13y ago
  > Jobs was definitely cunning and ruthless but he wasn't all brute force, he set up a deal whereby these other companies would see things his way due to their own greed. So, basically, he did the same thing for employees that he did for iTunes music licensing.
cwaniak 13y ago
Funny how this comment made me think "Putin vs. West"

What 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.

by kolbe 13y ago

What 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 ago

Yep 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 ago
It 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 ago
  Not 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 ago
    I 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 ago
The 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.
- yourapostasy 13y ago
  There some of us engineers go again, playing checkers for temporary baubles with those who play chess and for keeps and the deed of the land the game is played upon, never mind the milk and cow. If the most the fevered imaginations some engineers can come up with on an upside scenario of this wage-fixing affair is "thermonuclear bidding war for engineers", then this subset of engineers as a group don't believe the power of their own constructions, and deserve to lose control over what they make. This period we live in today is where we are still building the nascent infrastructure of what is likely going to be looked upon as a seminal and epochal change in the species' economic (at least, if not other areas of human endeavor) development in the far (10+ generations) future. Another impactful change like this won't happen again for a long, long time; this is mass adoption of the printing press change, modern banking practices establishment type change. Entire Great Law of the Iroquois spans of time (seven generations) pass without these types of changes. We would likely need some development like perfecting self-sustaining fusion power or Drexlerian nanotech to arrive at such a pivotal moment again. If you do not want to bemoan in late life regrets for not seizing this historical moment and for leaving it to non-technical people to seize it instead, then the wage-fixing should be a clear signal that what we build has far more significance than technical accomplishment in exchange for temporary compensation. There is vast wealth being constructed here, and lots of non-engineers are intent upon seizing control of it. Wage-fixing is a tool of such control, but not in the obvious manner. The subtext not explored sufficiently is the wage-fixing serves a larger purpose: wages high enough to keep employees satisfied to stay on (and the wage-fixing "encourages" them to stay in one place), but not quite high enough to cause too many of them to literally afford the opportunity to strike out on their own and capture a slice of the wealth being created by using their creative efforts to build their own piece of the emerging wealth. That to me is the more meaningful aspect of control about the wage-fixing. The mentality of the top leadership at these companies is decidedly not cornucopian-oriented in the time frames they operate in when thinking about employee compensation, so leaving and successfully building anything on your own is a straight zero sum loss to them (because time preference differ between the parties). I don't need to be telling HN readers this as here lies gathered an immense pool of people breaking out and building their own piece of the future wealth horizon; that's preaching to the choir. But the wider technical audience needs to be informed about this battle for control over a future wealth source of humanity.
snowwrestler 13y ago
It was in Google's best interest to make the agreement and to enforce it aggressively. It helped keep salaries down and it reduced the flow of proprietary info out of the company. I'm not saying that's right--because it's not. I'm just saying, thinking that Apple pushed Google around is the wrong reading. Google did what they did because they wanted to.

GVIrish 13y ago

I don't think it's necessarily that other SV executives were weaklings, it's that they thought the non-poaching agreement was in their interests too. Jobs was definitely cunning and ruthless but he wasn't all brute force, he set up a deal whereby these other companies would see things his way due to their own greed. I think that scenario played out a couple of times in Jobs' career. He would do something ruthless or somewhat distasteful, but because the people he was pushing his idea on stood to profit in some way they agreed with it, even though it enriched Jobs a lot more than it enriched them.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lambdasquirrel 13y ago
On the other side of things, it provides a nice reason to not hire those people. I've seen managers take it on as a bit of "rationalization debt." If you can't give a good reason for something, find something or someone to blame it on.
derefr 13y ago
> Jobs was definitely cunning and ruthless but he wasn't all brute force, he set up a deal whereby these other companies would see things his way due to their own greed. So, basically, he did the same thing for employees that he did for iTunes music licensing.

cwaniak 13y ago

Funny how this comment made me think "Putin vs. West"