
Steve Jobs' exchange with Palm CEO Ed Colligan - maccman
http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit
======
philp
Appalling.

Maybe somebody with a legal education that eclipses mine can chime in here,
but isn't this whole exchange just mired in liability landmines? For starters,
Jobs is trying to coerce a non-compete clause out of Colligan. To the best of
my knowledge, that is just flat out illegal in California. Then we have the
pretty much blatant threat of unrelated patent litigation if Palm chooses not
to cooperate with the aforementioned hiring policy. Shouldn't that be regarded
as extortion?

Would love to hear an expert opinion on why this exchange even took place in
any traceable from. I imagine an Apple lawyer would see Jobs type this up and
just burn the whole place to the ground...

~~~
will_brown
Philip let me address the three legal issues you seemed curious about.

1\. Non-compete clauses are not exactly "illegal" in California rather
unenforceable. They are put into agreements typically as boiler plate "I agree
for a period of 'x' I will not work for a company that competes with employer
or start my own." So if you were hired in California and went to work for a
competing company in California, it would be safe to say if there was a non-
compete" clause in the original contract the courts would not enforce it.
However, these are multi-national corporations so non-compete clauses can be
enforceable in a lot of jurisdictions outside California.

2\. As it relates to the idea that Apple was trying to sign an agreement with
Palm not to hire each others employees, anti-compete is between the
employer/employee not two competing companies, so the companies have the
contractual right to enter into these agreements. __*This may be a general
rule, but your gut instinct is right on because there are a number of
exceptions that would make agreements between competing companies illegal, for
example if they had an effect of price fixing.

3\. Apple's approach of "threatening lawsuit" for patent infringement is not
tactful, but not extortion either. Laws on this point can be very strict, for
example you cannot necessarily threaten lawsuit, but Apple is within its right
to send cease and desist with formal demand when it feels its patents are
being violated. Naturally, part of a demand is agreement to not pursue the
lawsuit if the demand is met. It may sound like extortion, but do not forget
Palm does not have to agree to the terms of the demand (Palm might not even be
violating Apple patents) and Palm can always take its chances in court and
even if they lost they could still hire Apple employees.

~~~
walshemj
are not Cartels illegal under the The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 - fixing
the price of labor presumably counts.

~~~
will_brown
Fixing price of labor would be more along the lines of Palm and Apple coming
together and agreeing not to pay their employees greater than "$X". This way
it would not matter what company Employee goes to work because his salary
would be fixed across the industry. (There are always exceptions, for example
if you practice law you have to be a member of the State Bar making Bars
natural monopolies - and Bars also fix the industry prices by setting the fees
lawyers can charge. Yet Bars do not violate the Sherman Act)

Courts will distinguish that type of labor cost fixing from Palm and Apple
agreeing to not solicit one anthers employees, which will keep their labor
cost down, but this is not the prohibited behavior contemplated by the Sherman
Act.

~~~
walshemj
Interesting I suppose a "resonable person" would think suppressing the wage
bill counted but as ever one rune for you and me one for the employer.

Though this does reduce the state tax take which I know that individual states
can get quite litigious over this issue

------
sachingulaya
Useful context for Jobs' response:

"Jon Rubinstein is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer who
played an instrumental role in the development of the iPod. Jon Rubenstein
left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April
14, 2006. He became executive chairman of the board at Palm, Inc., after
private equity firm Elevation Partners completed a significant investment in
the handheld manufacturer in October 2007."

"Anderson previously served as executive vice president and Chief Financial
Officer of Apple Inc. from March 1996 through June 2004.[1] He took over the
duties of CEO after the ouster of CEO Gil Amelio and before the appointment of
Steve Jobs as interim CEO.[2] His responsibilities at Apple included oversight
of the companies controller, treasury, investor relations, tax, information
systems, internal audit, facilities and human resources operations.[1] On June
8, 2004, Anderson was appointed to Apple's board of directors. On October 4,
2006 Anderson resigned from Apple's board following a three month
investigation into Apple's stock option practices.[3]"

------
cantlin
What strikes me most is the absolute single mindedness of Jobs, especially in
contrast to Colligan's appeal to empathy. _This is not acceptable to Apple._
What a way to talk!

Colligan goes to great lengths to establish commonality, using rhetoric like
"Like you, ...", "...as you said...", "We can both try...", "...big enough for
both of us...". He invokes individual liberty, _"this is America!"_ ,
rationalising and depersonalising his stance.

For Steve though, there appears to be one thing only: stop doing what you're
doing. He belittles then intimidates, in clipped dismissive sentences. All
Ed's appeals to reason seem to mean less to him than the mud on his boot.
Stop. Doing. What. You're. Doing.

~~~
Spooky23
Think about Palm vs. Apple. People running companies turn to empathy when they
are at a disadvantage.

------
nathan_long
This should be Exhibit A in the case for patent reform. Patents are no longer
a protectant for The Little Inventor; they are weapons that big companies can
stockpile and use them to bully competitors.

With the smartphone market as hot as it is, wouldn't you expect to see
thousands of companies making them? This is why you don't.

------
zaidf
At least one guy knew these emails would be becoming public one day and his
tone and message says so.

------
skc
Interesting responses so far on HN I must say. It's a good thing for some here
that Microsoft was found guilty for their bullying tactics because it gives
people an out when comparing Apple and Microsoft, when in reality, in terms of
aggressiveness they actually are/were one and the same.

------
rdl
I wonder if Mr. Colligan actually felt that way and was that
principled/articulate, or if he either knew it was illegal or ran it by his
lawyers to take the high ground in a letter which they thought would likely
become public/discoverable later.

~~~
campnic
The fact that he sent an _email_ follow up to a phone conversations means that
1) he had already decided not to become part of the collusion and 2) he wanted
to leave a paper trail which would be made public if the collusion was ever
detected.

If they've had off the record phone communication about the subject, the
decision to follow that up with an email is a calculated decision. If he had
decided to participate in the recruitment embargo, it certainly would not have
been acknowledged in an email for all the discovery reasons that make this a
compelling PR piece.

On the flip side, Steve Jobs comes off as being completely ignorant that this
is discoverable. I don't know why he'd include threats in an email like this.

~~~
altcognito
Or, it just goes to show how little CEOs and companies (particularly at this
level) have to fear anymore about actually being prosecuted.

------
kyro
Somewhat related:

One thing that's always somewhat of a surprise to me is that as genius as a
marketer as he was, Steve Jobs wasn't terribly eloquent. It's something I
first noticed when watching his Stanford speech years ago and continued to
pick up on throughut his various keynote addresses and leaked emails like the
one in the linked document. His sentence structure was typically one-
dimensional and vocabulary simple, which is probably why he was such an
effective salesman -- he was easy to understand.

Being a strong, effective leader usually conjures up images of people who are
prolific writers and great orators, or Bill Clinton-type masters of
persuasion, but Steve wasn't any of that.

~~~
bad_user
I'm not sure what you think of when you say "eloquent". I watched the
Standford speech and other talks of him and the thing that always struck me
was how eloquent and persuasive he was.

Also, great orators do use a simple vocabulary. Bill Clinton is not
necessarily the right example, because he's a politician and bullshiting
people with fancy words and long speeches are part of the job description.

~~~
jimbokun
Clinton's persuasive genius was on display in the last Democratic National
Convention where he made clear what Obama had achieved, and the tactics the
Republicans were using to try to stop him, in very clear, simple language
everyone could understand.

I think Clinton and Jobs are more alike than different, in that respect.

~~~
bad_user
I never listened to that speech, but as I was saying, great orators wrap
powerful messages in a simple and clear language. And anybody that tried
delivering speeches to an audience this way knows how difficult it can be.

------
parasubvert
I don't find this email exchange appalling at all. What's appalling is the
naive idealistic reaction here, that reeks of blindness to how business is
practiced at scale.

I've been involved in this sort of anti-poaching discussion at senior levels
before. It happens all the time, in many industries - particularly in
jurisdictions non-competes are enforceable. When an executive leaves one place
and goes to another (say a CIO or VP), they bring people with them. Often in
violation of non-solicitation and non-compete agreements, which are a pain in
the ass for everyone to enforce. So you do what you can to Stop. The.
Practice.

In the case of California, Jobs didnt have a direct legal avenue to stop this
so he wanted to use other threats to stop a competitor. That seems normal. If
it was not legal, then his lawyers did him no favors. Immoral? Not at all.
It's business.

The reaction here reminds me of Slashdot circa 98, clucking over leaked
Microsoft memos. The hacker/open source idealism here seems way stronger than
that of entrepreneurs or business people. Makes sense I guess.

Perhaps people love early stage companies here because they can ignore the
dirtier parts of business after you have a product/market fit... like,
competition.

Competition is dirty and messy. It's not a kid gloves "lets out innovate each
other!" like you're toddlers in a sandbox not allowed to hit each other. It's
about marketing negatively (see Samsung's anti Apple ads), aggressive sales
and pricing (see the Nexus 7 sold at cost), stopping poaching (Apple above),
and removing supply lines by buying them up (Apple with displays and flash
memory).

Sure, business isn't JUST those things. It also is innovation. Preferably lots
of it. But people here are a rather naive if they think most companies aren't
spending over 50% of their time on the former. Apple is actually unique for
their size in how much time it spends innovating rather than, to paraphrase
Ray Kroc, "sticking a live hose in your competitor's mouth".

~~~
bjt
When two giants agree not to hire each other's employees in a particular
industry (mobile) and a particular location (Silicon Valley), they do serious
damage to those employees' wages and career paths. They've also violated
antitrust law. See this example from Google and Apple, for example, which
shows communication less outrageous than Jobs' email to Palm.
[http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57367924/google-
apple-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57367924/google-apple-in-
anti-trust-issue/)

~~~
rexreed
Exactly - see my comment below on this. Indeed, the more technically advanced
/ niche / specific the industry, the more disastrous these sorts of handshake
no-poach agreements have on the salary and employment prospects of those that
work in the industry.

~~~
parasubvert
I don't disagree with your point. I view this as a conflict of interest
between managers and labour.

In this particular case we are talking less about general poaching and more
about the poaching activities of an individual (Rubie) soliciting others out
of personal relationships. I can see why many jurisdictions actually enforce
anti-soliciting agreements, because this practice is very damaging.

On the other hand, broad based poaching collusion hurts labour, who should be
protected by Uncle Sam.

The point is that, such a conflict is natural, and I'm observing that the HN
crowd in these threads seems to be surprisingly supportive of government
intervention. Maybe the libertarians are avoiding Apple threads.

~~~
rexreed
I prefer to think of myself as a pragmatist. In certain situations, the
business environment should be trusted to pursue their self-motivated
interests because they are also the interests of consumers and the citizenry.
In these cases, the government should not meddle.

However, in other situations, the business self-motivated interests are
contradictory to those interests of their customers, employees, and their
citizen neighbors. In these cases, the government needs to make sure that
these businesses don't run amok and totally ruin the environment, the economy,
and the market as a whole.

Those who take one extreme (no government intervention in either scenario --
what you call Libertarians) are no more virtuous that take the other extreme
(the government must be involved in all forms of business activity). I hope we
see more pragmatists and less dogma(tists) on HN. From what I can see -- these
HN conversations do look balanced on the whole.

~~~
cloverich
> However, in other situations, the business self-motivated interests are
> contradictory to those interests of their customers, employees, and their
> citizen neighbors. In these cases, the government needs to make sure that
> these businesses don't run amok and totally ruin the environment, the
> economy, and the market as a whole.

I dont think that's how many on HN view it and also to the point:

The bargaining chips Jobs is using to _promote_ these anti-competitive
practices _only exist because of government intervention_. If the government
is going to provide companies with an effective monopoly (patents), under the
argument that it (allegedly) _promotes_ innovation, then they should be held
accountable for balancing those forces when they are abused (in this case,
abusing workers). I dont think that's contradictory in a "Pro when it helps
me, anti when it hurts me way". Take out the Patents, and the problem
(arguably) goes away entirely.

~~~
parasubvert
Anti trust, unenforceable anti-compete and anti-solicitation agreements also
only exist because of government intervention.

------
frogpelt
Steve Jobs was a megalomaniac.

Interestingly, his megalomaniacal tendencies actually produced things that
others might not have been able to get done. In other words, it became a bit
of self-fulfilling prophecy to live in his fantasy world where everyone should
do exactly as he thought they should.

~~~
jolohaga
Jobs couldn't have done what he did if power was his motivation.

------
zmmmmm
As someone making his living in various forms of IT, knowledge of this kind of
thing is difficult for me. I find it so disgusting that it's very hard to
stomach recommending technical solutions, or even investing in the equipment I
need, when I know that it will aid in the prospering of these companies that
will then use it for such ugly, immoral actions. The problem is you slowly
learn of this kind of thing from every tech company and soon enough you're
just disgusted with the whole IT career. Unless you are very lucky with your
job options, you can't just retreat into some happy corner where you program
in Lisp on Linux servers all day long. You have to get over it and put it at
arms length or face the fact your career is going to be much less fruitful
than it otherwise would be.

~~~
JungleGymSam
You're bummin' me out, man!

------
blisterpeanuts
It's just an interesting little footnote in the history of Apple's rise to
handheld superstardom.

Ed Colligan sounds very reasonable and level headed in his responses to Jobs'
threats and intimidation approach.

However, Mr. Colligan basically led his company into insolvency, failing to
innovate, failing to support his customers, failing to properly leverage the
once-dominant Palm market share.

I was there in 2004, a happy user of the mighty Palm T3 which to this very day
has some superior features versus the Android and iOS handhelds. My wife still
misses her Zire.

I gritted my teeth and put up with Palm's steadfast refusal to support Linux;
jpilot and pilot-sync filled in the gaps pretty well.

Then Palm decided to innovate by abandoning the PalmOS platform entirely and
going with WebOS. Did they support Palm apps? Sure, as an extra cost add-on.
Friends with Palm WebOS phones traded them in for Android as soon as they
could; the units were buggy and crashy.

So in the long run, the support and innovation award has to go to Apple, and
in my opinion it has less to do with employee poaching than with visionary and
intelligent leadership.

Certainly you can't build a great company without great talent, but poaching
from your competitors is only a small part of the story.

Then there's the stigma of being the poachee. Is it advisable to be known as
someone who will jump ship and join the enemy for a few more pieces of silver?
Is loyalty of so little value? In my opinion, there's great value in loyalty
to one's company. If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere
before joining the competition. It's a professional courtesy thing.

~~~
cloverich
> Is it advisable to be known as someone who will jump ship and join the enemy
> for a few more pieces of silver? Is loyalty of so little value? In my
> opinion, there's great value in loyalty to one's company. If you must jump
> ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the competition. It's a
> professional courtesy thing.

No. But what if say... you hate your boss? You disagree with the coding (for
example) style imposed on you? What if more money is just a (small) part of
the story? Its not as though Jobs is arguing "Hey, you can take my employees,
as long as you don't pay them _more_ ". There are _many_ reasons to leave a
job, and any good interviewer will ask you why if you are jumping ship.

> If you must jump ship, at least spend a year elsewhere before joining the
> competition. It's a professional courtesy thing.

IMHO, not a reasonable expectation. Going to a competitor, you are presumably
taking your experience with you. By not going to one, you are presumably
throwing it away - why is that a good thing (for innovation or personal
success)?

It would be great if we all worked for companies that _really cared_ about us.
Those companies are few and far between, and my guess is they don't fear
employee attrition as much as the bad employers. Or, perhaps that fear of
attrition is _why they are good to their employees at all_. Either way, I
don't think the issue is nearly as simplistic as you're making it out to be.

------
sethbannon
What a shameful way to run a company. This is not how we innovate.

~~~
gsibble
You're assuming Apple wants anyone else to innovate. I would not say that
assumption is correct.

------
billiam
Why the current meme for examining Steve's entrails? Is anyone surprised at
this exchange? One of Steve's lifelong obsessions was a wildly distorted idea
of employee poaching. As someone who worked at two different companies that
received these kinds of communications from Steve, I can say that he usually
only struck out at companies he knew well, like Palm. Ed probably doesn't know
it, but Steve actually threatened Palm in much the same way years earlier. He
did the same sputtering act about prceived poaching with Motorola around 2005,
which took some stones, since at the same time he and his guys were busy
playing MOT like a pinball machine to teach them how to make phones and how to
do business with AT&T. But that's another story. In both these instances,
lawyers were dutifully involved, but the execs involved mostly just laughed it
off. Steve being Steve.

------
znowi
Nothing in this correspondence surprises me. Just an everyday Steve Jobs.

What I worry about is his apprentice - Mark Zuckerberg. Who is possibly more
brutal in his approach, and potentially far more _dangerous_.

~~~
seunosewa
Mark Zuckerberg, brutal and dangerous? I don't think so.

~~~
xradionut
Considering how much data he has access to, extremely dangerous.

------
dorkitude
Steve's letter is a disappointment to me. I wrote up my thoughts here, in a
post entitled "It’s important not to worship any hero wholesale":

[http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-
to-w...](http://dorkitude.com/post/41267859215/its-important-not-to-worship-
any-hero-wholesale)

~~~
laumars
This isn't new or unique for Jobs though.

He was great at portraying the public image of an ambitious hippy and a
visionary who seeked innovation. But in reality he was a bad tempered and
egotistical attention seeker with a narrow mind and thus had to do everything
his own way.

None of his innovations were invented by him. Not even in the early days
(Wozniak deserves the real praise there). His hippy attitudes only extended as
far as was convenient for him (he claimed that money was never a motive, yet
he was one of the most ruthless CEOs who added the highest mark ups on their
products than any other company in the technology sector). He didn't even
extend his hippy attitudes to his own work force as he was a complete bastard
to anyone who wasn't working themselves to death. And then there's the way he
treated his own family - absolutely disgraceful.

What Jobs had going for him was his ability to switch on his charisma when he
needed to. This is what lead him to recruiting some of the brightest minds;
this is what helped inspire them to create the products they did; and this is
what helped convince the millions of devoted followers that Apple were
anything more than just another 'megacorp'.

~~~
marcusf
While total worship is crazy, it feels just as unbalanced to say that Steve's
only quality was a toggle-switch on his charisma.

Maybe I'm reading what you're trying to say uncharitably though.

~~~
laumars
I think you're right that I'm being unbalanced. I just get so sick of reading
about people crediting him personally for all the great technological
breakthroughs that I was probably over compensating with the aforementioned
rant.

------
thewisedude
I see this as exploitation or price fixing in some way! Let me elaborate. Lets
say Steve Jobs was paying an Engineer $100K at Apple. That skill set might
have been worth atleast $120K to Palm. So Palm decides to hire him giving him
a decent raise to join ( a good incentive to join). Lets say Palm gives him
$120K. Now Apple which secretly knows that the engineer is worth a lot more to
Apple will have to throw in more than Palm, say they will have to offer 150K$
to draw him back. Palm might again counter offer and this kind of bidding
might go on until the Engineer get his true value(In a way market is deciding
the engineer's worth) - But what is happening here is that Steve Jobs is kind
of colluding with Palm to "fix the price" of the Engineer without market
deciding so! There by saving/making a boatload of cash (money saved is money
earned)! Sure, what I am saying is probably not the book definition of price
fixing, but I would think that the motive/sentiment is very similar!

------
glazskunrukitis
Pure tyranny.

~~~
enraged_camel
I disagree. Poaching is frowned upon in every industry. That said, it is
likely the Palm CEO wasn't aware that the 3 employees they hired were poached.
He probably thought they came on their own. Which just goes on to show how out
of touch with reality he must have been (ironically, since it was Jobs who was
known for his Reality Distortion Field). I mean, who in their right mind would
leave Apple and join Palm, of all places?

~~~
flyinRyan
>Poaching is frowned upon in every industry _by the companies who want to
exploit people without worrying about competition_.

FTFY. Labor is a market exactly like any other. If I buy Chevrolet for years
and then suddenly switch to Ford because they offer a better deal was I
"poached"? Such a nonsensical concept.

If you don't want people "poaching" your talent, pay them better. If you can't
afford to then that's just the market efficiently allocating resources.

~~~
nathan_long
I agree, except for this: imagine Company X will pay twice as much for
engineers who currently work for a competitor, specifically because they want
to get the competitor's knowledge.

The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up
legally. They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets, but
it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've learned in
a past job.

I don't see a good solution to this, but I can see why one would be upset by
such "poaching."

That said, "do what we want or we'll sue you for patent infringement" is an
inexcusable tactic.

~~~
flyinRyan
>specifically because they want to get the competitor's knowledge.

This is covered by NDAs and if you can prove these were violated you can get
something done about it. I've seen this happen.

>The competitor can try non-complete clauses, but those may not hold up
legally.

I should certainly hope they wouldn't be held up legally. It's bullshit. The
worker has a chance to make twice as much money. They shouldn't get blocked
because some company thinks we're still in slavery times.

If it really matters so much to the company, they could just pay those workers
double themselves (since, by definition, that's the market rate of those
workers now). Moving is always a bit of a pain so if they're not already very
unhappy they might even take less than double just to not have to move.

>They can threaten to sue former employees who betray secrets

If they can prove the NDA was violated they will sue and they will win.

>but it's pretty hard not to use or at least be inspired by what you've
learned in a past job.

What you learn on the job is yours. This is known and completely accepted. If
this were not the case then a Senior programmer would make the same money as a
fresh-out-of-college Junior programmer.

You may find this extreme but some of us believe a programmer should get some
kind of residuals for anything they write for a company the way
authors/musicians/movie stars/sports players do for their work.

------
veidr
Steve Jobs may have been a dick, but he was _really fuckin preternaturally
good_ at being a dick.

~~~
csmattryder
You can be great at eating dirt, doesn't mean you should do it.

Especially with the 'financial resources' comment, he was being politely
reassured that the recruitment is purely in Palm's technology interests, and
Jobs comes back with a 'we're doing better than you' remark.

How some people think he's a saint (or for some a deity in his own right) is
truly beyond me.

~~~
michaelhoffman
The point wasn't really "we're doing better than you" but rather that Apple
could easily afford to throw away a lot of money so that Steve could get his
way.

------
balbaugh
The difference in writing styles and the impact thereof. This really stood out
to me.

The Palm CEO seems to really be on the defensive the whole time, even while
countering the patent threat. Jobs, on the other hand, was short and
deliberate.

~~~
ajsharp
Yea, the Palm letter clearly had been reviewed by someone in his corporate
counsel. They probably coached him on what points to hit on that might look
good to a judge one day.

------
tushark
This is surreal. Even though Steve Jobs is an inspiration for me, I actually
agree a lot with Ed Colligan here.

A couple thoughts:

\- It's definitely possible for both companies to have awesome teams. No one
person is going to make or break either team.

\- Employees should have a right to work where they want to. Part of this
means that if I am a skilled employee, I'll get offers to come work for other
companies. If I engage in a conversation, then it's perfectly alright for the
company to actively recruit me. On the flip side, if I decline, they should
back off. But, at the end of the day, it should be my choice. Both the company
and employee need to win (which might be hard at times).

\- Part of living in a free, capitalist, democratic society is the beauty that
if an employee tries to leave, you can try to persuade them otherwise. This
can be done in a variety of ways, but it comes down to taking the more
appealing offer (that doesn't just have to be pay and title, but can also be
the values of the company or the employee's lust for working at a particular
company or their freedom to have a little less bureaucracy and instead
experiment with new ideas, etc. etc.)

\- I love the jab at the end, where Ed claims that Palm is not interested in
getting or using confidential Apple information and also informs their
employees of their duties to their previous employers

------
djt
I think before people jump on the bandwagon they should think about Jobs state
of mind when he wrote this.

iPhone just launched and still vulnerable. Senior staff going to a competitor
and also Personally poaching staff and being involved in the interviews etc.

Let alone Jobs health issues etc.

Im not saying that Jobs was right, but we have the benefit of hindsight to see
that the iPhone worksed, there was no guarantee of that happening.

~~~
djt
If you disagree with what I said please leave a comment.

When comments that are idiologically "wrong" get downvoted without discussion
then it leads to a hivemind mentality.

~~~
eumenides1
I'll bite. Whatever's Steve Jobs' state of mind was, it was still wrong.

What if you were looking to change jobs or would have jumped jobs given the
offer proposed. Is it right to limit your recruitment because Steve Jobs was
sick or worried about a project? What if the project wasn't the iPhone, but
the Apple Newton? What if the destination company wasn't Palm, but Google?

The circumstances surrounding the situation don't absolve Steve Jobs of what
he tried to do.

~~~
djt
i never said whether it was right or wrong though.

Yes it is unenforceable, what i was saying is that Steve Jobs was a human and
not a god.

FYI quite a few tech companies were in this pact not to hire from each other.

~~~
eumenides1
A lot of companies were in on this pact, and I think they should all be
punished.

Steve was pretty consistent on this issue, he talked google and many other
companies on this. This is what makes him "bad". He did it willfully and
repeatedly.

I think what really irks me about the whole case is, that it's a free market
for competition, but it's more free for corporations than employees.

------
m0dE
I like how Job's letter had no sentiments attached to it. He knew where both
companies stood and he didn't hesitate to go for the gain.

~~~
abcd_f
Didn't get what he wanted though. Sentiments or not.

------
lifeisstillgood
This is almost entirely CEO-misdirection.

At any stage CEOs / founders throw their weight around in a mosh pit of
entrepreneurialism. If someone they bounce into falls over or steps back, they
know they are onto a winner and push harder. Get thrown back and they bounce
randomly in another direction.

This sort of threat is common - it is useless to imagine it might be a
potential partnership, there is no gain in it for Apple, it is just pushing in
a mosh pit - push back then concentrate on making great products - the only
thing that counts in the pit.

------
starik36
I am going to go against the grain here and say that what Steve Jobs is asking
(e.g. stop direct recruitment of Apple employees) is not unreasonable.

Microsoft's continued poaching of Borland employees brought about the demise
of the company, so I can see what he is worried about.

~~~
mullingitover
He's asking for his competitors to stop offering his employees more money than
he's paying them. He has all the money he needs to make counteroffers and keep
his employees in the fold, but he wants to deny them their fair market value
so he can keep that money. It's exploitation of the people who are building
his business and it's essentially stealing from them.

------
dribnet
tldr:

I, Ed Colligan (ex Palm CEO), swear to god this happened:

    
    
      steve: let's not hire each other's employees anymore, m-kay?
      ed: thanks steve, but no thanks.
      jobs: have you seen our patents and pile of cash, ed?
            you're entering a world of pain.

------
EGreg
It seems that software patents have long become a case of "hate the game, not
the player."

Although Steve Jos certainly was the most determined player I have seen on the
corporate stage.

------
watmough
This kind of stuff, and the ridiculous pain that Samsung is being put through,
is why I've quit using my iPhone and switched to a Nexus 4.

------
hhuio
Jobs have done a great job keeping wages low...

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outside1234
Man, if there was any doubt that Steve Jobs was evil (in the Google business
sense), it has been put to rest with this.

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ForFreedom
They sound like 5 year olds.

~~~
tjansen
"They" or "He"?

~~~
ForFreedom
They=He

------
zapfmann
Jee.. Still using an apple machine to read this?

~~~
michaelhoffman
No? What does it matter?

------
Zelphyr
Colligan: 3 pages

Jobs: 1

Sounds about right.

------
WayneDB
Direct link to PDF, look on page 8 or just search for Palm:
[http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/f...](http://www.antitrustinstitute.org/~antitrust/sites/default/files/945CLE.pdf)

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jtchang
This is one of the cases where it is hard as hell to infer what tone Steve
Jobs wanted to reply back with.

It sure sounds assholish but it is very well possible he knew that Palm was
actively poaching and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs. Palm's CEO writes
a fairly well measured e-mail but it is still a political dance.

~~~
flyinRyan
>very well possible he knew that Palm was actively poaching

Which isn't illegal, immoral or wrong in any way.

>and blatantly disregarding existing NDAs

Do you mean NDA here or non-compete clauses? NDAs should certainly be adhered
to but non-compete clauses should be illegal and certainly never enforced.

------
infoseckid
I'd have to give it up for Steve - ruthless and firm! No doubt Apple has done
so well. Love the guy! Especially loved the part where he says "asymmetry ...
" and "you guys felt otherwise - patents" ... Haha! love the Jobs style!

Employees are mercenaries anyway - I think Steve did the right thing as the
founder.

