Apple makes an annual revenue of $2m/employee. To put that into perspective, Goldman Sachs makes about $1.2m/employee. Apple has a perfectly good mechanism at it's disposal for retaining staff - pay them more.
What's even more telling is that engineers probably make up a smaller percentage of Apple's employees than bankers make up Goldman's employees (since the latter doesn't have much of a consumer retail presence). The engineers and designers at Apple are generating tremendous value for the company, but not getting compensated anywhere near the bankers at Goldman. People might not like banking as an industry, but it has the right approach to hiring. Instead of colluding to suppress wages or preserve relationships or whatever justification tech companies use, they write big bonus checks. That's how a free labor market is supposed to work.
You think this has to do more with cultural differences due to Goldman's historical roots as a partnership, or with structural differences in the banking vs technology industries?
I think you're right that part of the explanation is that the investment banks, having evolved from partnerships, don't really care what shareholders think. What I find interesting is the acqui-hire phenomenon. Instead of paying a $10 million signing bonus for a top prospect, they acquire his company just for him and his team with no intention of using the company's product.
Definitely true historically. Probably even more so. All the big banks used to be partnerships (like law firms) not public companies beholden to stockholders.
While I expect the point you're making still holds, I'm not sure revenue/employee is a worthwhile metric. Presumably Apple - making physical things - has more non-employee expenses, and one or the other may have significantly more irrelevant employees (I doubt janitorial staff was covered by the non-poaching agreement).
I hope they get taken to the cleaners over this.