
Emails, court docs show how Sony stood up to Steve Jobs’ and Pixar’s wage-fixing - mshafrir
http://pando.com/2014/07/10/revealed-emails-court-docs-show-how-sony-stood-up-to-steve-jobs-and-pixars-wage-fixing-cartel/
======
incision
I think the referenced bit on PandoDaily [1] has a bit more meat and seeing
exactly what was said really drives home the point.

From Ed Catmull's email to Steve Jobs:

 _"...one of our department managers told me that she was offered a position
as producer for Sony’s first CG film and is likely to accept._

 _" The director of the movie is REDACTED [Jill Culton, ex-Lucasfilm and on
Pixar-produced Monsters Inc—M.A.] who started off as head of story on Monsters
but burnt out. She is good but fragile."_

 _REDACTED will talk with her [the Pixar manager that Sony was poaching]. She
isn’t so great that we have to keep her, and she isn’t so bad that she would
hurt Sony._

Where wage-fixing is very general and hard to quantify this is quite personal
and tangible. He's directly looking to derail someone's career by preventing
them from seizing an opportunity he's not willing to give them. At the same
time he craps on someone who even he can't deny was a founding part of what
was at that point their biggest hit.

It's a grown man treating people and careers the way a toddler does toys.

1: [http://pando.com/2014/07/10/revealed-emails-court-docs-
show-...](http://pando.com/2014/07/10/revealed-emails-court-docs-show-how-
sony-stood-up-to-steve-jobs-and-pixars-wage-fixing-cartel/)

~~~
cookiecaper
I don't see anything exceptionally dirty about that mail. I went to the
article to get the full context and still don't see it. The intimation of the
article and, in fact, everything I've heard on this stuff, is that all anti-
poaching agreements exist solely for the purpose of depressing employee wages,
but I don't think that holds true. It may be technically illegal, but the
potential moral implications of a no-poaching agreement are non-obvious and I
think decent people can forge these agreements with good intentions.

Reporting on staff movements isn't necessarily selfish or evil. It's important
to understand what's going on with your workforce: know where they're going
and why. Catmull's email seems totally fine to me -- he's reporting on a
poached employee to Jobs, explaining that Sony is aggressively pursuing Pixar
personnel, and that they were already taking a certain employee of moderate
value particularly. Catmull reiterates that there is no extant no-poach
arrangement with Sony. That's useful information for a CEO, right?

I think some people are trying to make this a bigger deal than it has to be.
If there's an email that shows direct evidence of conspiracy to fix wages, I'd
be interested in seeing that, but I don't think the no-poach agreements need
to be assumed to have been a bad-faith arrangement.

EDIT: Woops, HN has decided I'm not allowed to talk anymore. Usually when this
happens it lasts a pretty long time (at least several hours, I suspect
something like 12-24). I'd like to continue discussing with you all, but
that'll have to be it for me in this thread.

~~~
wpietri
Prices arise through market forces: the competition of buyers for the same
goods. If the largest purchasers of a given good agree not to compete, then
prices are absolutely harmed.

Understanding where staff is going is reasonable. Making it so that your staff
doesn't have opportunities to go anywhere? That's a criminal conspiracy to rig
a market.

~~~
cookiecaper
I agree that a likely effect was artificial depression of employee salaries,
but I don't think we've seen it adequately demonstrated that that was the
primary _intended_ effect and not just an unintentional or tertiary _side_
effect of the agreement. Frequent poaching is often considered unsportsmanlike
competition by business people; I know several of the companies I've been
affiliated with have felt that way. It's possible that Pixar et al had the
best intentions when establishing this protocol.

It doesn't really leave the employee without somewhere to go, it just makes it
harder for them to find employment at a direct competitor while still
employed. I would bet that most people who would've been poached would've been
hired by a competitor within hours of resigning at their current employer.

That doesn't make it OK, and like I said, it's very possible all of this was
illegal from the get-go. I'm just saying there's no need to jump to the
conclusion that malice and conspiracy were the primary motives behind these
compacts, and there's no need to drag someone's name through the mud when
definitive evidence doesn't exist.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" but I don't think we've seen it adequately demonstrated that that was the
> primary intended effect and not just an unintentional or tertiary side
> effect of the agreement"_

Do we need to demonstrate intention? You brought up mens rea elsewhere in the
thread but it hardly seems relevant at the end of the day. Someone with a
clear intent to screw his employees certainly is more despicable and
villainesque, but the practical impact on the employees is the same even if he
did so unintentionally.

And we can frown upon it all the same, because it's not as if he did something
innocent with unforeseen side effect - the agreement was illegal, and the fact
that it was secret suggests everyone involved knew this.

So yeah, I'm maybe willing to believe that Ed Catmull didn't go out there with
the explicit intent of screwing his employees. He may have engaged in this
agreement in protection of his company, or of his work, but ultimately he (and
every other SV CEO involved) kept it hush-hush because they knew it was
illegal and immoral, and that the wider world would cry foul at what they were
doing.

 _Mens rea_ would make the morality of this more open and shut, but I do not
believe it is critical to our ability to judge the impact and legacy of these
actions.

> _" Frequent poaching is often considered unsportsmanlike competition by
> business people; I know several of the companies I've been affiliated with
> have felt that way."_

But yet this isn't a game. These are people, not basketballs. It's careers,
not the soccer field. It's families, children, vacations, dreams, plans, not
points in to be scored against your opponent.

You're being unfairly downvoted IMO and you've brought up some good points,
but what you're seeing (some have stated this explicitly) is backlash against
business folk who are so concerned about the high-level game being played that
they've forgotten that the pieces on the board are people.

The mistake here is the belief that this is somehow unique to Ed Catmull, Eric
Schmidt, Steve Jobs, et al. The demonization of him I'm seeing in this thread
is disappointing because a large percentage of the people doing the pitchfork-
waving would have done the exact same thing in his position. All sufficiently
complex systems (the movie industry certainly one of them) evolve complex
rules and strategies, and it's remarkably easy to get lost in them and forget
that these systems are built on top of people.

It's tempting to think of people who do bad things as "evil men", because it
gives us security: "I'd never do something like that, phew". In reality though
there are few evil men, but many men who do evil things. The notion that some
people are capable of evil while others are not is hubris, and is a great way
to end up on the wrong side of the morality scale without even knowing it. I
personally doubt Ed Catmull ever got out of bed in the morning and decided he
was going to screw a bunch of animators and inhibit their careers, but yet it
happened, and I'd encourage all the pitchfork-wavers in this thread to
consider that they themselves can just as easily end up in that position,
_especially_ if they approach life with the assumption that they're one of the
Good Guys.

~~~
cookiecaper
>And we can frown upon it all the same, because it's not as if he did
something innocent with unforeseen side effect - the agreement was illegal,
and the fact that it was secret suggests everyone involved knew this.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most corporate agreements like this secret
by default? It's an internal business mechanic and can be considered
proprietary based on that. The press releases only come out when a company
thinks something is of low enough tactical value that it can be revealed
without harming the company and high enough PR value that it can be used to
woo investors or consumers.

I don't think there's any inference that the pacts were considered immoral by
the signatories in the fact that they weren't publicly declared. There were
obviously many people between all of the participant companies that knew about
these pacts, and it doesn't sound like it was considered super-duper-top-
secret and could only be mentioned behind the closed doors of the CEO's
office.

As I stated elsewhere, we should also consider the DOJ's angle on this.
Prosecutors want to make a name for themselves and it's in their interest to
portray all of their defendants as scoundrels. They want to blow open a big
public scandal. They want to leave a legacy before the next president comes in
and restocks the department with his own people. The prosecutor's job is
practically to convince everyone that the defendants are evil, but in cases
like this, it's rarely true. We need to acknowledge these perverse incentives
as we read about this case, too.

>what you're seeing (some have stated this explicitly) is backlash against
business folk who are so concerned about the high-level game being played that
they've forgotten that the pieces on the board are people.

I don't think that's a fair characterization either. An executive's concern
for _everyone_ on his staff causes him to act in the best interest of the
company as a whole, and not just the best interest of a specific individual or
a specific type of employee that may be in greater demand. If bidding wars and
poaching becomes disruptive, it's natural to seek a remedy. Catmull states
several times in these articles that poaching is "bad for everyone" and seems
sincere in that belief. He believes it's bad for executives, employees,
competing studios, etc., and one can see the logic in that belief. He tried to
stop a practice that he viewed as parasitic. In Catmull's view, even if an
animator got poached with a big raise, this practice is _still_ a net
negative, presumably because it destabilizes the industry and potentially
decreases the longevity of that career.

Maybe he was wrong and maybe he broke the law. But it doesn't mean that he
forgot that his employees were real people.

I appreciate the rest of your post, which acknowledges that Catmull is
probably not irredeemably evil.

------
forrestthewoods
This is so disappointing. I've always really respected Catmull. He has given
many presentations and speeches with incredible value.

His actions here are, I think, by definition evil. Decisions made with selfish
intent with willful disregard to the negative consequences it has on others.
That's my definition at least, everyone has their own. How utterly
disappointing. :(

~~~
chris_mahan
Agreed. I'm reading his book Creativity Inc. right now, and it's chock-full of
goodness. Except that now, I question the very motives and integrity of the
author, so the whole thing is completely suspect, and I might just not
continue reading.

~~~
cookiecaper
We're too fast to discard people in this community. The linked article is
heavily editorialized; it doesn't represent anything like even-handed
coverage. We should give important figures in our community the benefit of the
doubt, and learn how to respectfully disagree with one another. Even if
something is illegal, it's not necessarily self-evidently immoral, and Catmull
et al easily could've made anti-poaching pacts without the intention of
suppressing employee wages.

We're only getting one side of the story here: the story of the DOJ, which has
its own political interests. And in typical fashion with these highly
sensationalized scandals, bullying and shame are deployed to force people into
one camp or the other. People are discouraged from finding a middle ground,
trying to empathize with both sides, etc. They're told, "X is bad, and Y did
X! How can you still act in any reasonable manner toward Y? He must be
banished!"

We need to be careful and we need to quit feeding our own to the wolves. We
need to back off of our hair-trigger. So far, I know of no documentation that
shows clear _mens rea_ on the part of Catmull, and even if that _is_ shown, it
doesn't mean all of his contributions should be thrown out the door. That's
very simple-minded, silly thinking.

~~~
shiven
Sorry to invoke Godwin's law here. But now your defense of Catmull is quickly
devolving into "What about all the good things Hitler did?".

~~~
cookiecaper
Do you understand how absolutely absurd it is to compare the perpetrator of
one of the world's most expansive genocides to two executives that agreed they
wouldn't actively poach each others' employees?

Also, _what about_ all the good things Hitler did? I think that's a historical
perspective that's often lacking. It can be satisfying to paint people who've
committed crimes as Satan incarnate, but that's not realistic, and selling a
fantastical version of history as definitive can have serious long-term
consequences.

~~~
shiven
_Also, what about all the good things Hitler did?_

None of the _good deeds_ matter anymore once the level of _bad deeds_ exceeds
a moral threshold. Just as there is _redemption_ for exceeding your past bad
deeds with present and future good deeds, so there is _damnation_ for doing
the opposite.

Now, we can argue till we are blue in the face about what the moral threshold
should be, but it varies from person to person, society to society and
civilization to civilization. In this day and age, Ed Catmull (arguably with
intent) conspired to harm other human beings' earnings, something that not
only affects those humans directly, but indirectly their immediate families as
well.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you appear to speak from the perspective of
someone who is financially all set, without monetary concerns that can
adversely affect your children's education (public vs private schooling,
college vs no college), a family member requiring expensive healthcare
(chronic disease, terminal care) or concerns about home ownership. In my mind,
you being free of such burdens (for whatever reason), are free to take the
other (higher/lower) road of thought. But just because you are not affected by
someone artificially limiting your income, does not mean others who are
affected should shut up and suck it in without calling out the perpetrator for
what they did. In their mind, and for many here, Ed Catmull is now _damned_.

You are welcome to call it silly minded and simplistic, but that does not
change the facts of this case.

~~~
cookiecaper
I think it's absurd to place the moral event horizon [1] somewhere in the
obscure fineries of anti-trust law. This is what I mean when I say that no-
poach agreements are not an egregious or blatant moral crime.

Did you know there are real people living among us that don't agree with anti-
trust law? They don't think it should exist, they think it's unfair
legislation meant to disadvantage successful players. Are all of these people
also "damned", to use your elegant and gracious terminology?

I'll reiterate, as I have many times up to this point, that Catmull may have
been wrong, that he may have been breaking the law, and that his actions may
have had the indirect side effect of suppressing overall industry wages (even
if _mens rea_ is eventually shown and an email wherein Catmull explicitly
states that his goal is to depress employee wages emerges, the effect of the
no-poach agreement would still be indirect). But there is another side to this
story that people refuse to recognize because they now have it ingrained in
their heads that this is a good v. evil, corporate bigwig v. innocent little
guy case, and they won't allow themselves to empathize with the other side in
fear that they may be considered guilty by association (as some in this thread
have already done with me).

At its root, such feelings are the result of rhetorical tactic to win the case
by shame. People will cast events like they could only be perpetrated by the
dirtiest scoundrels alive, but it's not a reflection of reality. This kind of
thing is the bread and butter of political pundits. We should be able to see
through those tactics here, but over and over again, it's proven that most of
us can't, as we lead witch hunts to drive industry luminaries away simply
because people in this industry can't understand how to disagree in a civil
manner. It's very discouraging.

I hope that you reconsider the case with a broader, kinder perspective.

[1]:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MoralEventHorizon)

~~~
shiven
Throughout this thread, your defense of Ed Catmull's actions has been nothing
short of heroic. But, to what end?

Why would he deserve such a defense and not some random other sociopath in a
position of power? Or Rajat Gupta? Or Raj Rajaratnam? Or Steven A Cohen?
According to your thesis (i.e. the fashionable disaffection of the _have nots_
against the _haves_ ), none of _their_ crimes are heinous enough to justify a
slap on the wrist, leave alone jail time.

 _Did you know there are real people living among us that don 't agree with
anti-trust law? They don't think it should exist, they think it's unfair
legislation meant to disadvantage successful players. Are all of these people
also "damned", to use your elegant and gracious terminology?_

Do these real people agree with the punishment meted out to the gentlemen I
listed above? In all honesty, their crimes affected their "victims" less
directly than the actions of Ed Catmull affected his employees and their
families.

 _We should be able to see through those tactics here, but over and over
again, it 's proven that most of us can't, as we lead witch hunts to drive
industry luminaries away simply because people in this industry can't
understand how to disagree in a civil manner._

We should also see through the _cult of the personality_ that haunts the
industry, at the same time and not excuse inexcusable behavior just because
someone is _accomplished_ or _successful_ , in one way or another.

 _I hope that you reconsider the case with a broader, kinder perspective._

You are appealing to a sense of compassion that was completely, utterly and
evidently absent in Ed Catmull and other members of the _wage-supression
cartel_. Why do they deserve such kindness, when they showed neither that, nor
remorse for their actions?

Again, you have not clarified the part about your perspective, wherein I asked
if you, personally, would have been disadvantaged by the actions of Ed Catmull
and friends? There, perhaps, lies the root of disagreement to begin with?

As for me, I was not directly affected, but I do wholeheartedly empathize with
those who were.

~~~
cookiecaper
> Throughout this thread, your defense of Ed Catmull's actions has been
> nothing short of heroic. But, to what end?

An even-handed, rational discussion of the issues at hand. In my opinion, the
discussion up to this point has been absolutely farcical. Actual comparisons
to Hitler? Give me a break.

My hope is that my posts decrease the prevalence of that utterly ridiculous
level of hyperbole. We should try to consider the perspectives of all parties
involved, especially when the career and good name of a community member is on
the line.

>Why would he deserve such a defense and not some random other sociopath in a
position of power?

He deserves a defense because you're calling him a sociopath and the trial, if
there is one, hasn't even started yet. Even if Catmull had already been
convicted, "sociopath" is a clinical term that's not determined by legal
proceedings, and it's not appropriate to misapply like this. That's absolutely
inexcusable, unprofessional behavior.

Not all criminals are sociopaths. Not all people we disagree with are
criminals.

>According to your thesis (i.e. the fashionable disaffection of the have nots
against the haves), none of their crimes are heinous enough to justify a slap
on the wrist, leave alone jail time.

Personally, I think many insider trading convictions _are_ hogwash. It's
possible that some aren't, and some of those guys had _mens rea_ and deserve
to be imprisoned for the theft they perpetrated, but I think we should assume
good faith until disproven. Nothing in regard to the "Pixar cartel" has yet
demonstrated _mens rea_ , and even if such a thing existed, I wouldn't be
prepared to demonize Catmull. I don't think we gain much of anything from that
type of behavior.

>Do these real people agree with the punishment meted out to the gentlemen I
listed above? In all honesty, their crimes affected their "victims" less
directly than the actions of Ed Catmull affected his employees and their
families.

I can't speak for everyone, but as all of your listed persons were convicted
of insider trading, I can say there are definitely people that don't think
that should be illegal either, or that believe only egregious cases should be
prosecuted.

>We should also see through the cult of the personality that haunts the
industry, at the same time and not excuse inexcusable behavior just because
someone is accomplished or successful, in one way or another.

I completely agree that we shouldn't give people a pass on criminal activity
based solely on their position in a company or government. We do need to have
some baseline courtesy here though and recognize that people are innocent
until proven guilty, that Catmull has a very long history of good deeds that
is at odds with his characterization as an evildoer, and that the consequences
of a witch hunt can be very serious and very sad. We have a legal system that
handles these sorts of complaints in a fair and civilized manner, and we
should at least let that flesh out before we start drawing conclusions,
burning books, and arraying computer scientists trying to run a business in
league with genocidal fascist dictators.

>You are appealing to a sense of compassion that was completely, utterly and
evidently absent in Ed Catmull and other members of the wage-supression
cartel. Why do they deserve such kindness, when they showed neither that, nor
remorse for their actions?

This is the primary point of contention here. You are assuming that Catmull et
al acted with evil intent, and you're applying vastly inappropriate labels
_even if that were the case_. You refuse to acknowledge that a legitimate
business purpose could have been addressed by the no-poach agreement, and you
refuse to acknowledge that these legitimate business purposes could've been a
motivation to the executive staff of the six major animation houses that were
party to this agreement.

>Again, you have not clarified the part about your perspective, wherein I
asked if you, personally, would have been disadvantaged by the actions of Ed
Catmull and friends? There, perhaps, lies the root of disagreement to begin
with?

I would have been. While I'm an entrepreneur and reasonably well-paid when all
of my income is taken into account, I'm still a middle-class guy who has to
work for a living. I couldn't go more than a few weeks without a paycheck of
one kind or another (I have both W2 and 1099 income). As much as I'd like to
be one of the insanely wealthy people who pop up on HN occasionally, it hasn't
happened for me yet. Maybe someday.

I don't see how that's relevant to the overarching argument, though. I can
perhaps empathize with Catmull more easily because I've had employees and I've
directed organizations before, but I don't think that experience is pre-
requisite to understanding that this activity doesn't make someone a
monstrosity.

------
samstave
Totally not surprised:

Back from ~2001-2004 when I was working on designing the Lucas Arts Letterman
Digital Arts center in the Presidio, there was a certain CIO who wanted us to
plan to build a studio in Asia. The reason was that "Asain animators are very
cheap, and they aren't primadonna's like the overpaid ones here in the
states."

They saw animators as commodity COGs.

~~~
CamperBob2
Which was not, and is not, an entirely invalid strategy.

~~~
samstave
But, please forgive me if I am wrong;

While that may be true - if this strategy was at the core of fomenting an
illegal wage-collusion between companies, than it doenst matter if the
strategy is valid: what matters is that to achieve the most effective outcome
of said strategy, CEOs of the biggest tech firms colluded to prevent worker
wages from reflecting true market value for the enrichment/better-ment of
their bottom line.

------
nikhizzle
This is really sad, I greatly respect Ed Catmull for his work in graphics
(z-buffer, catmull rom spline) and as a leader of extraordinarily consistently
creative company.

It just goes to show that even the best of us can succumb to greed.

~~~
prawn
Not excusing the behaviour at all as it is damaging to those working down the
chain, but would it feel like greed to someone in that position? Their first
thought would be that they're competing with another team and want to succeed.
Their job is to further the success of their crew. I don't think consideration
of staff wages and so on would even enter their minds unless they really
stopped to evaluate what they were doing.

Could there be better business education in this regard?

------
dba7dba
Let the payback begin, including interest.

Many years ago (10?) I distinctively remember reading an article about the
collapse of salary of animators. Their salary had shot up as much as a million
a year thanks to surprise hits such as the first batch of hits from Pixar. But
in a matter of a few months or a year or so, the salary had gone down
drastically.

The article was mentioning glut of animated movies etc, but I'm suspecting it
was due to this illegal act.

~~~
csbrooks
I don't feel like financial payback is sufficient. If laws were broken, people
need to go to prison. Looks to me like all the evidence is right there.

------
confluence
Fucking Catmull too? At this stage I'm no longer angry about the wage fixing
scandal. I've moved into complete disappointment.

Ed was someone I really looked up to.

------
chaostheory
I often wondered why the salaries were relatively low for such a group of
people. Now I know.

~~~
chubot
Anyone know how much these types of employee at Pixar are paid?

Since they do such specialized work, and since there is a very limited supply
of such talent (i.e. it takes many years of experience you can't get in
school), it would be surprising if their salaries weren't extremely high.

When I worked at EA, we had technical artists come over from DreamWorks,
Pixar, etc. But I don't know how much they were paid.

~~~
trhaynes
I'm not sure how good the data is, but this is what Glassdoor was designed
for.

[http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pixar-
Salaries-E5118.htm](http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Pixar-Salaries-E5118.htm)

"All 307 salaries posted anonymously by Pixar employees."

------
sergiotapia
Makes you wonder how bad wage-fixing is in the Valley don't it?

~~~
ranran876
It's not an entirely fair comparison b/c in animation there are only a few
options, while in software there are tons of midsized companies to choose
from. If Apple, Google, M$ and Amazon decided they will all cap salaries at
90K, people would just go elsewhere b/c they have that option.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening for the $250K+ jobs though

~~~
joshAg
uhhh, you do realize this was part of the price fixing that included apple,
google, and others right?

------
erichocean
Does anyone know if animator wages (or programmer wages for that matter) have
shot up substantially since the whole no-recruitment scandal came up?

That'd give us some idea of how much wages were suppressed all those years...

------
rdl
It's depressing that I'm far less surprised people are this evil than I am
that high level execs are this fucking stupid about using logged, discoverable
email to engage in criminal activity.

There's no way being unethical (or at the very least, "an utter dick") in one
area doesn't bleed over into other areas.

------
vijayr
Will anything come out of these investigations, other than fines? Fines are
useless. How are the going to prevent such things in future?

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/pixars-ed-catmull-
emerge...](http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/pixars-ed-catmull-emerges-as-
central-figure-in-the-wage-fixing-scandal-101362.html), which points to this.

------
anateus
The link goes to a specific comment, should strip that if possible.

------
paulhauggis
He should have artificially controlled wages through legal means: start a
union.

