
Steve Jobs's response after getting a Google employee fired. - omegant
http://pando.com/2014/03/25/newly-unsealed-documents-show-steve-jobs-brutally-callous-response-after-getting-a-google-employee-fired/
======
bernardom
This article is so sensationalist. They could have just reported the facts
without the histrionics and it would have been so much better.

This, especially: "The language is brutal, and as you’ll see, there’s an
almost sadistic, military glee on all sides with the way in which the Google
recruiter is 'terminated'"

The email following that description was exactly what I would have expected.
"Yes, this person screwed up. We have a clear policy that they failed to
follow. We're checking to see if they did this more than once. We've fired
that person. Please apologize on our behalf, it won't happen again."

Making the story about "brutal" this and "sadistic" that is senseless, naive,
and detracts from the real story, which is that they had these (illegal!)
policies in the first place. Stop buzzfeedifying the news.

~~~
Tomis02
Well it is brutal and sadistic because such a policy is neither moral nor
legal, as you pointed out, even though the email masks it with "professional"
language. Here comes another example of Godwin's law.. the quick termination
of Jews in WW2 was done very professionally by the day's standards. Sometime
readers (especially the young ones) need to be spoon-fed for a while before
they start understanding and interpreting facts on their own, qualifiers that
you mention are most likely meant for them.

And, had we had a completely objective article we wouldn't have had little
gems like this - "apologizing and grovelling to Steve Jobs is a recurring
theme" \- which I find very accurate.

Also - "Please make a public example of this termination within the group". I
guess when you go work for Google you need to leave your moral compass at the
entrance.

~~~
bernardom
Don't be shrill. They "lost their moral compass" because they fired someone
who violated a clear policy and wanted to make it clear to all employees that
such behavior is unexpected? Give me a break.

You are right that professional execution of unconscionable policies is itself
unconscionable. But this isn't that. It's just illegal. There are degrees.
Whether current Google recruiters should be blacklisted from further jobs for
enforcing a policy that they should-have-known-better about is an interesting
question that I don't see anyone asking... because the tone of this article
engenders polarized arguments, not reasoned debate.

Lastly, I couldn't disagree more with your assertion that "sometimes
readers... need to be spoon-fed." That's not your job, nor the press' job. I
do _not_ _not_ _not_ want anyone's interpretation of the facts mixed with
reporting of the facts. Save the paternalism for your kids.

~~~
FireBeyond
Firing someone who didn't follow your edict to break the law (by action, or by
inaction) is immoral, absolutely.

~~~
bernardom
Let me be clear: I agree. What they (the mid-level HR people) did was immoral.
Obviously.

My point is that there's no need to compare them to war criminals, or for the
dramatics in an ostensibly "news" site- "sadistic," "brutal," et al.

When we do so, we displace a conversation about the real story: a tech cartel
that colludes to depress salaries, and the secondary but still very
interesting question of how their mid- and lower-level employees who enforced
the policies should be treated.

~~~
a3n
> What they (the mid-level HR people) did was immoral. Obviously.

"Geshuri’s decision to “terminate within the hour” the recruiter was
enthusiastically seconded by Google’s VP for Human Resources, Shona Brown ..."

There's nothing mid-level about the VP of HR. She should have known this was
illegal, certainly was responsible to know that it was illegal, and was
responsible for either advising the company that it's illegal or leave the
company.

------
jroseattle
October 7, 2009: Eric Schmidt, responding to a question about why Google would
not go the same way as Microsoft now that it is so large and powerful.

“There are many, many reasons why we are not going to be like Microsoft. The
first has to do with the culture of the founders, the culture of the company,
the value systems. The second has to do with the majority of the users, and
usage is one click away from moving to a competitor, which is not true of more
embedded platforms in high tech. It is very difficult to move out your
database system, it is very difficult to move out of Windows, for
technological reasons whereas it is quite easy to move out of these online
services.

“The third is that, having taken such a strong position as a company, if
somehow we went into a room with the evil light, and somehow evil came all
over us and we exited that room and we announced an evil strategy, we would be
destroyed. We would be destroyed in reputation, we would be destroyed in
consumer behaviour, consumers would mass against us, and so forth. There is a
fundamental trust relationship between Google and its users.

“And the fourth is that none of us would ever want to go through the kind of
legal proceedings that would then follow in enough countries to make it
painful. So there are positive reasons and there are good negative reasons,
plus I do not think any of us are going anywhere and we have not yet found the
evil room on our campus.”

For those keeping score on the timeline, this quote is two years after the
incident mentioned in the pando.com article.

Reference: [http://blogs.ft.com/businessblog/2009/10/eric-schmidt-
thinks...](http://blogs.ft.com/businessblog/2009/10/eric-schmidt-thinks-that-
microsoft-has-an-evil-room/)

------
victorhooi
I previously had a lot of respect for the Google founders, and figured they
were decent human beings.

That behaviour from Steve Jobs I can kind of expect - he's fairly consistently
shown that he's basically just a bad seed.

However, the behaviour from Brin also sounds like pretty a*sehole behaviour.

Curious is anybody can confirm if they're actually like this?

Or was this all taken out of context?

Surely he's actually nicer than this in person?

~~~
Touche
He knowingly participated in a scheme that suppressed the wages of every
engineer in the Valley. That should tell you enough.

~~~
xauronx
I'm bouncing back and forth between "ah shit, and I thought they were cool..."
and... Well, engineers are finicky and will bounce back and forth between
companies each time they're offered a few grand more... Why don't we just
avoid that?

~~~
Morgawr
Is a man not entitled to his own worth and value? I see nothing wrong with
that, if your engineer can easily be sniped by a competing company willing to
offer enough salary increase to convince somebody to move out of his job and
jump to a new platform/environment/learning process, maybe you should be
paying him more. You're not willing to? Well maybe that single engineer wasn't
that vital to your company after all.

------
simon_
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
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

~~~
roc
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?

------
bane
I'll refer to my previous comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7463419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7463419)

There are many other things that disturb me about this.

\- the HR professionals who participated in this illegal non-solicitation
scheme. I mean really, nobody raised their hand and said, "FYI, this _is_
illegal". I'm sure they say it all the time about other HR issues where
companies try to eliminate expenses and maximize profit.

\- what's the story on how Steve came to know about the solicitation? Did the
Apple employee raise the flag to their boss (who should have also known that
this was illegal) or where their emails being read? smells like fish.

\- what's the word on the wrongful termination lawsuits that must be in the
works?

------
JeremyMorgan
Are people surprised when tech executives act like other power hungry execs?

The worst part of it was "make a public example of this termination". This
doesn't make it any more or less illegal but it shows how drunk on power on he
is.

~~~
mikeash
"Make a public example of this termination" was written by by Google's VP of
HR, not Jobs.

~~~
lostInTheWoods3
_Make a public example of this termination_

WTF? When did this become feudal Japan?

~~~
jjoonathan
There are two cases where the "obey me without question or else" atmosphere is
particularly useful:

1\. In the military, where debates and disagreements could create fatal
communication problems and delays

2\. When the people in power need to suppress a truth that would otherwise be
outed in the normal course of discussion

------
a2tech
The smiley at the end is rough. However, I'd like to point out that Google
took the action of firing the employee so quickly and strongly. Job's simply
asked that Google's recruitment department please stop.

~~~
incision
_> "Job's simply asked that Google's recruitment department please stop."_

Hardly.

When one executive contacts another directly the intent is implicit. If
destroying this person was not the clear desire this communication would have
taken place at another level.

~~~
javert
What you said is just made-up nonsense. You can claim that when somebody says
X they really mean Y, but without evidence for that, it is a bogus claim.

Sipmle logic states that Steve Jobs actually cared about maintaining the
scheme he had with Google and couldn't care less about one particular Google
employee.

Why would he? If he really were some kind of perverted power-luster he had
plenty of his own employees to torture, but he just wasn't like that. He was
always pursuing HIS GOALS ruthlessly, he wasn't out to get his rocks off by
hurting people or exercising power.

(None of this is from direct experience, but it's evident from public
information.)

~~~
jroseattle
But alas, we don't live in a world of simple logic.

It's important to remember that Schmidt was on Apple's Board of Directors at
the time this occurred (he joined in the fall of 2006.) The Board was hand-
picked in its entirety by Jobs.

These are power guys, and if Schmidt doesn't do something strongly, he will be
perceived as weak. The implicitness in this email was a basic alpha-male
locker-room challenge for Schmidt to show if he had any balls.

To me, this looks like a survivalist-move on the part of Schmidt to show Jobs
he is "in charge" at Google. It's obvious Jobs knew how to push his buttons;
otherwise, why would he (Schmidt) jump when the CEO of another company (Jobs)
said "jump"?

~~~
jsymolon
> show Jobs he is "in charge" at Google

Such locker room / schoolyard pissing contests show lack of leadership,
creativity, compassion and humility. Very Wall Street.

Without a source of what was in the policy manual it's really hard to armchair
quarterback, but such 1 strike and you're toast really sends the wrong message
to everyone.

The message back to Jobs should have been, It's taken care of. Won't happen
again.

Internally, IF the policy said violate A,B or C and termination applies, I
can't quibble.

Otherwise, people make mistakes and should be handled as such. That what makes
companies "Great Places to Work" and not the next job to pull a paycheck
before the next one.

------
dmethvin
In plenty of companies I've seen people get off with warnings for at least
their first few offenses of sexual harassment, being drunk or stoned on the
job, and abusive language towards others. Yet here is something the execs
should have known is _clearly_ illegal and they're firing employees on the
first offense. Supposedly recruiters were given a briefing about it but you
have to wonder how much it was emphasized or written down, especially if their
supervisors realized it was illegal.

------
BrandonMarc
_" If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn't be doing it in the first place."_

 _\- Eric Schmidt, 2009 as CEO of Google, on concerns about privacy and Google
's insatiable appetite for info_

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-
schmid...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-
dismisses-privacy)

Yes, people bring up this quote all the time so it seems cliche to do so ...
but I don't care. I say choke him on his own words for being so casual about
it in the first place -- when it affected others, that is; he had a very
public hissy-fit when someone publicized details about him, even blocked
Cnet.com from Google for a time if I recall right.

------
neves
We are in a new society where the Information Technology brings enormous
increases of productivity. The gains go to a small group of people. The
capitalistic way to share this new wealth is to increase the workers wages.
The middle class societies of Europe and North America were created this way.

Google and Apple are extremely lucrative companies, seeing them conspiring to
decrease salaries is really sad. A sure path to a worse world.

On the other side, to see the American judiciary system attacking this evil
behavior shows us why the United became the greatest nation in the world.

------
boiler_up800
None of the language in the emails seems that shocking or "brutal" (as the
article says) to me. I guess the smiley face is a little strange, but I don't
think it was particularly malicious.

~~~
thinkpad20
Yeah I agree. A smiley face just means "thanks" or "good", not "MUAHAHAHAAA".
It doesn't mean this is all OK, but the article really goes over the top
trying to drum up emotions (warning: the next email you're going to read will
scar you for life and possibly kill you). It's almost cartoonish.

~~~
jjoonathan
Steve Jobs's reply was almost cartoonish.

------
voidlogic
Does this employee now have recourse to sue for wrongful termination since she
was fired due to failure to comply with an illegal policy?

~~~
sjg007
She should contact a labor attorney and probably has a strong case.

------
yrochat
Brin's reaction is hilarious... and scary at the same time. I never imagined
that these people could have so much contempt toward their employees.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Employees who endanger relations between tech giants by trying to poach
employees even though they've been specifically asked not to by their
superiors.

I mean, I agree that the treatment is rough, but the employee really was at
fault for going rogue.

~~~
devcpp
Are we sure she knew about it?

>violating the secret and illegal non-solicitation compact

It doesn't say anywhere whether she actually knew about this. That would
change my reaction from completely horrified to just utterly disgusted.

And 'rogue' is a... unique way to put it. It's not like she disclosed it to
the press so it's a pretty tame rogue.

~~~
rtkwe
> "In general, we have a very clear ‘do not call’ policy (attached) that is
> given to every staffing professional" ... "Unfortunately, every six months
> or so someone makes an error in judgment, and for this type of violation we
> terminate their relationship with Google."

The recruiter knew from the how the Google HR to Eric Schmidt email reads. The
'secret' part of this agreement is being over emphasized, if you're going to
have a non-poaching agreement your staffing employees need to know or it's
utterly pointless.

------
davidw
This kind of thing is the reason I like working at smaller companies. People
do stupid stuff at those too, but there seems to be less of this "just
following orders" herd mentality.

~~~
yardie
I enjoy working at smaller companies because I actually feel like I make a
difference. How little do you actually contribute to your company if you can
be fired within the hour.

------
programminggeek
What is most remarkable is a lot of software developers love Google because
they are so open and against patents and all of that, yet Google, Apple, and
others are all working together to screw software developers out of getting
paid more.

For as much flack as Microsoft took over the years for being evil, I can't say
that Google or Apple have done much better, even for their own people.

------
csbrooks
Are non-solicitation agreements between companies illegal? I'm guessing
blacklisting people is illegal, but is not actively soliciting employees
illegal?

(I'm not commenting on morality here, just legality.)

My last employer had a non-solicitation agreement in place with partner
companies they were working with. Is that illegal, I wonder?

~~~
kasey_junk
Was the agreement between the employers or between the employees? In some
jurisdictions it is completely fine to have non-compete agreements and they
very often are used to prevent vendor/customer poaching.

~~~
csbrooks
It was between the employers, who were also working together on business
projects. They asked us to help enforce it, by telling them if a recruiter
reached out to us from one of our partners.

Felt questionable to me.

~~~
talmand
It probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but in many cases a non-
compete agreement is between the employer and the employee. Meaning that you
can't quit one company to go work for a competitor. Most of the time the
reasoning is because you may know trade secrets that you then may share with
the company's competitor, which may be why they hired you away. Sometimes
these agreements hold up in court and sometimes not.

A non-compete agreement between your employer and another company without your
consent or input will likely not hold up in court and could be illegal
depending on local laws.

------
ctz
Don't be evil.

------
BrandonMarc
What hit me the most is how Google and Apple had this illegal, secret
agreement in place (for some reason I've never heard of it 'til now; it ought
to be publicized more, for all the good PR these companies enjoy it'd be nice
for more people to see the full story) ... and how Jobs (Apple, a.k.a. "cool"
incarnate) and especially Brin (Google, known for "don't be evil") are so
arrogant about it.

------
coloncapitald
There has been a recurring argument about whether Steve Jobs became successful
_because of_ his behavior or _despite_ his behavior. Few days back, I came
across a compilation of facts on imgur images[1] which will immediately make
you hate Steve Jobs. I also read the tumblr post 'What I Learned Negotiating
With Steve Jobs'[2] which is also on the same lines. And then I read NY Times
article that Jobs family has been secretly donating money to charity for past
20 years anonymously[3].

One thing is clear. The world is fascinated by Steve Jobs.

[1] [http://imgur.com/gallery/neGNG](http://imgur.com/gallery/neGNG) (couldn't
verify accuracy of facts)

[2] [http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/80368150370/what-i-
learne...](http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/post/80368150370/what-i-learned-
negotiating-with-steve-jobs)

[3] [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/laurene-powell-
jobs...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/laurene-powell-jobs-and-
anonymous-giving-in-silicon-valley/)

------
k-mcgrady
This has very little to do with Jobs. It sounds like the employee broke a
known rule and Google reacted once they were informed (although I'd argue they
acted too harshly).

~~~
Zigurd
> _a known rule_

That "rule" is an illegal collusion that's probably worth billions in salary,
ISOs, bonuses, etc. That is, the totality of the crime here is that the
participants in the collusion literally stole billions of dollars from
salaried employees.

How obsequious the HR people are in this is a minor factor. This is a Bernie
Madoff-sized crime. What Madoff did was a more visible crime, so he was
punished like a common criminal. But if you shave a few tens of thousands of
dollars per year off a few tens of thousands of engineers' salaries and your
motto is "Don't be evil" (or if you do something really big, like diddle the
LIBOR rate) people think different, for some reason.

~~~
thinkpad20
> This is a Bernie Madoff-sized crime.

Really? Equivalent to a $50 billion ponzi scheme in which thousands of people
lost their pensions and become destitute? That's the same as denying a few
thousand dollars to already very highly compensated engineers? I'm not
excusing what they're doing but the Madoff comparison seems off.

~~~
Zigurd
Is it a smaller crime if you take smaller amounts from more people? Had these
been outright unpaid wages, the answer would be clear. The dollar value here
is probably similar.

~~~
thinkpad20
They're not poaching each other's workers, so let's say that Tom works for
Apple and makes $90,000 per year. Google could attempt to recruit Tom and
offer him $100,000 per year, but they don't. So Tom loses $10,000 per year.
This is probably the worst-case scenario for an individual engineer. Of
course, Tom is still earning a very nice salary over that time, and who knows,
maybe he actually ends up making more, but let's envision a worst-case
scenario in which an engineer loses $100 grand over ten years, because of this
policy.

In order for the dollar value to be similar to what Madoff stole from people,
that scenario, or a higher wage loss, would have had to happen to five hundred
thousand engineers. All working at a handful of companies.

Does that still sound plausible to you?

~~~
Zigurd
Or to 100k employees for 5 years. Or if it's not just cash but ISOs and
bonuses that are also depressed, maybe just 50k employees. Multiple large tech
employers are involved, over a span of perhps longer than 5 years. It adds up
quickly.

------
c0nsumer
I can't help but wonder who the recruiter was. I was going through Google's
interview process right around this time, knew the recruiter that I was
working with had connections to folks at Apple, and one day she was
mysteriously no longer with Google. It makes me wonder if it was the same
person...

~~~
CoolGuySteve
Apple layed off a bunch of HR people around 2009-2010 as well. I knew one of
them.

Why would a company with so much cash layoff part of a single division? It's
incredibly suspicious.

------
zhaphod
I was indifferent towards all the hate/worship Jobs got. But seeing that
smiley in response to some one getting fired makes me think he was a douche.
He could simply have said that Google handled it the way he wanted. No need to
take such pleasure in this matter.

------
willaa
I just wonder how did Steve find out this email? Did the employee hand it in?
Did Apple have a scanner on their email server?

------
malandrew
Do all the HR people in this email thread still have jobs? The only people who
should still be employed is the original recruiter from google. Everyone else
is complicit in these illegal actions.

------
erokar
There is mounting evidence Steve Jobs was a sociopath. Corporations select for
these traits in their CEOs and Google is no expection. Not surprising, not
shocking, but sad.

~~~
clef
Well who would be naive enough to think you can make it to the top and play
with the big boys by being Mr NiceGuy? Being acquired by
Facebook/google/Microsoft/apple is probably what saves a lot of "founders"
from becoming the next "charismatic" sociopaths...

------
pskocik
I think English dictionaries should redefine "don't recall" as an idiom
meaning "find it convenient to pretend not to remember" :)

~~~
talmand
In Congressional hearings it's a common method to avoid invoking the fifth
amendment which could be cause for further investigation. If they don't
recall, maybe there's nothing to it; if they invoke the fifth, there's likely
something there and you just have to find it elsewhere.

------
wil421
Could the fired employee seek damages for wrongful termination? I dont recall
what brought about this whole non poaching case.

------
outside1234
I think Google should make a public example of Sharon by making her do the
perp walk between the building and the cop car.

~~~
a3n
Actually that's probably similar to what they'll eventually do, and the big
three will fly off into the sunset.

------
techhackblob
Colluding to keep down wages, which would attract more people into
programming, and then always complaining that there are not enough software
developers while, also illegally, discriminating against expensive older
programmers. Shows money is the main factor with respect to programmers
ability.

~~~
papasmrf
The real complaint is that there are not enough programmers that they can pay
cheaply. The idea that there are not enough programmers is just bs.

------
yonran
In the counterfactual world in which Eric Schmidt were aware that the no-poach
agreements might be violating antitrust laws, I doubt that the outcome between
Apple and Google would have been any different.

Google and Apple had a friendly business relationship at the time. Apple was
using Google search as the default on Safari. They were collaborating to make
Maps and YouTube apps on the iPhone. When a recruiter tried to poach the
Safari team while the companies were collaborating, I think it was right for
Jobs to be angry and tell Schmidt that it jeopardized the collaboration
between them, and it was right for Schmidt to stop being rude to a partner.

------
papasmrf
"Don't be evil." Should have been read as "Don't be evil, unless it helps
Google get ahead." This all brings up the age old question..... how much money
is enough?

------
chris_mahan
So, now you know why I like neither Google not Apple.

If these were foreign countries, we'd have invaded them and set up puppet
democracies.

Morons. Like they couldn't figure out the public would find out eventually...

------
gcb0
How that lawyer can suck that much? He let someone who wrote an email get away
in questioning by saying he was CCed and don't recall it. He wrote emails on
the thread dammit.

------
boldpanda
I don't think we should pile on these tech execs. It happens elsewhere. I'd
speculate it's rather widespread.

I worked for a Fortune 500 market research / consumer data company and I know
for a fact that the Senior VP of our office would call Fortune 500 clients and
kindly request they not "poach" our employees.

Most of it is done casually and "innocently". I doubt most execs even thought
they were breaking the law before this came to light.

~~~
Zigurd
Add up the cost to salaried employees. It's a multi-billion dollar crime.

------
candybar
I think people are overreacting in the sense that non-solicitation agreements
are not illegal per se and exist almost everywhere - tons of corporate
partnership/vendor/contractor/etc agreements include such language because
sometimes it's difficult for companies to work together closely in good faith
without such agreement in place.

The main reason that the agreement is deemed illegal here is that they were
made with a specific intent to manipulate the market at large and because they
are deemed to have kind of market power, being a cartel of large employers.
Also, the nature of the agreement is far too broad and the companies involved
is far too numerous for them to argue in good faith that their intent was much
more narrow.

I completely agree that they overstepped and should be held liable, but some
of the outrage seems misguided. The HR executive involved, for instance, may
or may not be in position to know that the policy is part of an illegal scheme
and the fired employee certainly was not. Also, unless you're one of the star
programmers who were highly in demand, it's quite unlikely that your salary
was all that depressed over this. If anything, the impact may have been
slightly positive for average employees - at a lot of places, superstars
aren't necessarily substitutes for average employees, but rather complements
and lowering prices of superstars can boost rather than depress wages of
average employees:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html)

On the whole, this is kind of the replay of the Microsoft anti-trust trials.
Bundling web browsers with operating systems is not illegal - the illegal part
was the context in which such action occurred. It was seen as an abuse of
market power. Sports leagues openly collude on this kind of stuff without most
people caring at all or pointing fingers at those involved. Government can
have strong interest in such matters in the interest of encouraging a
healthier market - though political and career motivations of
lawyers/prosecutors involved also play a large part - but to seeing this as a
clear morality play is not wise.

Edit: actually this covers the legal issues better:

[http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/258600/Antitrust+Compet...](http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/258600/Antitrust+Competition/How+to+Legally+Keep+Competitors+from+Poaching+Your+Key+Employees+Antitrust+Law+and+NonPoachingNonSolicitation+Agreements)

Assuming the article is correct, having a general agreement without any
specific, legitimate purpose is illegal, but on a limited basic it can be
legal. Still it seems far-fetched to assume that the HR executive in question
had to know that such an illegal agreement existed, because for all he knows,
a much more limited, legal contract could have existed due to their
partnership and Google may have had a broader policy to ensure easy
compliance. We now know that that's not the case, but I don't know why we can
assume that the HR executive necessarily was aware of all this.

~~~
Zigurd
Contractor agreements are like agency agreements. The contract employee is a
party to the agreement.

This is like colluding to set the price of LCD displays or chips. That's
illegal. Even an HR director should know that.

~~~
candybar
You're usually not party to a non-solicitation agreement in which others are
not allowed to solicit you. If you as an individual contractor sign such an
agreement with your client, your client's employees whom you're not allowed to
solicit were not party to the agreement.

Even if you somehow forced everyone to be part of the agreement, it's
irrelevant - whether Apple's and Google's employment contracts had language
that forced the employees to agree to what's going on here is not exactly
relevant consideration.

Edit: part of the irony of this whole "non-solicitation agreements are
illegal" chorus is that I think most people complaining probably have signed
such agreements in the past as they are quite routine. Granted, most of the
time, it's just handed to us and we have to sign or gtfo.

------
Wohui
This reads like a UK tabloid article. (the internet should never feel that
way)

As in, you're told what to think in advance of all info.

------
pessimizer
As with the Snowden leaks, I have to wonder if the number of fully aware
collaborators in this crime would be more easily counted in tens, hundreds, or
thousands.

I previously thought in this specific case that it would be tens, but if
entire departments were being lectured about the penalties for deviation -
were hundreds of people aware?

------
newaccountfool
This is something people would have thought happened at Wall Street company,
just shows that tech is ruthless to.

~~~
rayiner
Wall Street is, in general, much more employee-friendly than your typical
F500. It's the result of most of the big investment banks having been
partnerships rather than corporations until relatively recently.

------
rockshassa
If you're trying to make us feel sorry for a tech recruiter, you may have come
to the wrong place.

~~~
ericb
I hear you, but do you know how many people would kill to have people stalking
them with job offers.

------
coreymgilmore
These companies are run by cutthroat persons. I'm not too surprised this stuff
happens. They all want to compete and dominate their market, and that requires
working together at times (even though its still competition...so maybe
oligopoly).

But Steve's response is great :)

------
bowlofpetunias
Hmm... the cold and ruthless way Google deals with its own employees is more
shocking than Jobs's "brutal" response to it.

 _" make a public example of this termination"_

And they're calling Jobs's smiley brutal?

------
outside1234
Steve Jobs was a sociopath. there is nothing surprising about this at all.

------
adsr
What an odd spin on this story. Job's response is just a detail, the policy is
agreed upon between both companies which is clear from the correspondence and
Google's actions here.

------
pjmlp
"Do no evil."

When will geeks learn there are no good or bad corporations?

~~~
psbp
When you learn the slogan.

~~~
papasmrf
Glad to see Paul Graham's pending comments machine is working so well here.

~~~
nkurz
They didn't happen, although perhaps they are what is needed:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7475834)

------
retube
Wildly successful people exposed as utterly ruthless shock

</sarcasm>

------
angrydev
Regardless of the overarching policy, this brief exchange is being brought
down to tabloid level discussion by pando, it's really nothing that terrible.

------
cjf4
I'll avoid the legality of the suit, but I think the smiley face is being spun
a bit by the article.

Jobs wasn't sending the smiley face as some sort of grave dancing gesture, he
was sending it as a "here, I took care of this problem for you" gesture to the
team member that more than likely brought the issue to his attention. HR had a
problem with something Google's HR did, so to cross borders they needed the
boss to make the comment.

It's still sort of callous, but I don't think the author's framing this the
right way.

------
ElComradio
Can we ask Elon Musk to get rid of Arnnon for being involved in this? Or is
Tesla too holy and doing too much good, so they get a pass?

------
afhsfsfdsss88
The sociopathic CEO stereotype is affirmed once again.

I look forward to the coming Apple/Google/XXXX apologists vs. Lucid observer
comment war.

------
general_failure
I get all the hate. But seriously big companies are run by ruthless people.
Benovalent dictators are very rare..

------
melling
It's strange that Google was so worried about placating Steve on this issue,
yet they went on to redesign Android to be more like the iPhone, after it was
announced.

[http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/android-iphone-start-
over/](http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/android-iphone-start-over/)

~~~
ngcazz
For an earlier example, does anyone remember Google expressing actual outward
praise (better yet, free marketing posing as ass-kissing) to Apple?
[http://i54.tinypic.com/rw6np3.jpg](http://i54.tinypic.com/rw6np3.jpg)

~~~
BrandonMarc
Thanks for that ... triggered some nostalgia to see a screenshot of Google.com
circa 2005. I kinda miss those little icons letting you choose which "engine"
you wanted to use (i.e. web / images / maps / video / etc)

------
codeonfire
We can determine from this story that Apple's corporate email system in 2007
was wholly insecure. If one user can view and forward another users email, the
system is broken.

------
criswell
I admire and despise Jobs completely.

~~~
klepra
I despise Jobs completely. FIXED.

------
mavdi
SJ was such a lowlife. Seriously...

------
EGreg
I understand that this particular case happens to be considered illegal.
However, I am not convinced that a law banning this practice will not make
things worse for most people.

A cartel involves an arrangement where members REFUSE TO OFFER a better deal
than the others - a pricefixing arrangement. On the other hand, this is very
clearly about not going blatantly on each other's turf to solicit / poach.

Consider this ... how did Apple find out about this? Was the employee called
during work hours?

How come recruiters - internal HR or external agencies - can be instructed to
not advertise job openings in venues like porn sites, but - it seems from all
this outrage - cannot be instructed to not advertise on their competitors'
websites?

Why can't companies decide that the cost of reprisals for poaching key members
is too high, independently and internally, before agreeing not to do it?

To sum up - I do not see this as a cartel AS LONG AS neither company turns
away candidates who applied on their own, based on a mutual agreement. To be
fair, Google did have such a policy and to the extent that this policy
existed, that WAS a cartel. But NOT if the agreement is limited to not
advertising offers to each other's key employees. Those employees can easily
find out job openings and average salaries just like everyone else can.

If you are going to make the argument that recruiters calling certain key
employees of the other company to lure them away will give the majority of
employees a better sense of how much they are worth and everyone's salary if
going to go up, you'll have to work pretty hard to show the connection.
Poaching key members of a team (e.g. to sabotage a competitor's project) seems
to mostly benefit those key members. It increases the cost for everyone else
including the companies involved. And that cost is very likely to be passed on
to the other employees. You would also have to show that the companies will
always choose not to pass on the cost of poaching to their employees --
because otherwise, you will have to admit that LESS poaching might actually
lead to LARGER salaries. And in fact, the data seems to show this. (Once
again, by poaching I mean reaching out and specifically cold calling key
people in rival companies to advertise positions that they could have found on
their own.)

UPDATE: In fact, in many states the poaching itself of key members can be
illegal. Please consider this before you participate in the overblown outrage:

[http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2009/Oct/64552.html](http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2009/Oct/64552.html)

Here is a court case of the exact opposite of what you are outraged about:

[http://blogs.findlaw.com/tarnished_twenty/2010/07/tennessee-...](http://blogs.findlaw.com/tarnished_twenty/2010/07/tennessee-
titans-sue-uscs-lane-kiffin-for-malicious-interference.html)

Here is another example of tortious interference

[http://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/interference-
wi...](http://corporate.findlaw.com/human-resources/interference-with-
contractual-or-business-relations-the-business.html)

------
poofyleek
:)

------
pyrrhotech
Getting fired from your cushy silicon valley recruiting job is far from the
end of the world. He probably had another one in a week. Who gives a shit? :)
was a fine response.

~~~
beshrkayali
I assume this wouldn't be your reaction if you were at the receiving end of
this reaction for an "illegal" deal in the first place.

~~~
lsaferite
Well, I'd say that if you violate company policy about who you can and cannot
contact you should expect consequences.

The fact that the policy itself may be illegal is secondary.

------
victorhooi
I previously thought the Google heads were pretty cool guys.

However, if you can believe the tabloids, it seem Sergey Brin is engaged in
some messy affair with another Google employee:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579067/Google-
CEO-L...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579067/Google-CEO-Larry-
Page-stopped-talking-founder-Sergey-Brin-affair-younger-employee.html)

[http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/04/sergey-brin-
amanda...](http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-
rosenberg-affair)

If you combine that with his pretty callous behaviour in those emails, maybe
he really is a bad character.

~~~
jtbigwoo
We're getting off-topic, but...

I suspect a decade living like the normal rules don't apply to you will make
you think that the rules don't apply to you. Brin, like most executives,
probably has an group of people around him invisibly smoothing out his
problems and shuttling him past all sorts of obstacles.

I'm basing this on a couple conversations with a retired telecom CEO (Charles)
I used to know. Here's what he had:

-If he mentions that someone is bothering him, that person is removed from his presence. (Charles wasn't even aware that this was happening for the first five years of his tenure as CEO--his wife pointed it out to him.)

-There are people who prepare him and make him look good in every conversation. If he doesn't know the answer to a question, he says, "I'll get back to you." Someone else writes the question down and a thoughtful, well-formulated answer appears on his desk the next morning.

-A medical plan that includes a 24/7 on-call doctor. The doctors in his plan specifically take very few patients so Charles and his family can get appointments almost immediately.

-If there's a line or waiting list, he is ushered around the line or someone waits in line on his behalf. Charles literally never waited in line for anything for 15 years.

Charles was thoughtful and empathetic and was lucky to have a wife who kept
him grounded. (She would say some variation of, "Don't screw it all up today,"
as he left the house each morning.) I suspect that most people wouldn't be
able to keep a healthy perspective.

Edit: removed an extra word

~~~
yuhong
In this case, I wonder if Schmidt being responsible for handling the legal
stuff didn't help here.

