DoJ: Apple, Google Now Free to Steal Each Other's Staff; This Is Better How?

http://www.fastcompany.com/1691464/doj-ruling-apple-google-intel-now-freer-to-steal-each-others-staff-and-this-is-better-how?partner=homepage_newsletter

by jrwoodruff • 16 years ago

25 25 16 years ago

fastcompany.com

robertg• 16 years ago

"But, who benefits in this case?"

uh.... everyone. Trying to sue someone so you can force your employees to stay is lose/lose.

zephyrfalcon2• 16 years ago

None of the companies involved in this ruling forced their employees to stay. They didn't stop them from getting a job at a competitor either. All the original agreement said was that the companies involved would not actively try to lure employees away from each other.

nerfhammer• 16 years ago

"steal" each other's staff. Fascinating how some people conceptualize this.

ergo98• 16 years ago

It's the slavery, owned-property model. It really is grotesque.

btmorex• 16 years ago

This guys analysis is pretty bad.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't think the deal was at all about maintaining good partner relations. I think it was more about trying to hold wages down in the valley. I realize that it was only a handful of companies, but those are the companies that literally everyone else looks to (for wage levels) and competes with for employees. It's quite possible that that agreement had very real effects on average salaries.

shin_lao• 16 years ago

I don't see how a company could have prevented an employee from leaving voluntary.

The article states that the company agreed not to use the most aggressive recruitment techniques (cold calling) on each other, which sounds like a gentlemen agreement more than collusion.

Google states that they recruited from Adobe, Intel, Apple, etc., that's pretty easy to verify.

reader5000• 16 years ago

He said the practice would repress wages. Absolutely nothing about leaving voluntarily. It seems pretty reasonable that an agreement banning the most aggressive forms of recruitment would have some negative effect on employee compensation.

ohyes• 16 years ago

They agreed not to actively compete for each other's employees.

In my simplistic (possibly wrong) view; If you look at employment as a market place, and individual employees as different commodities, it keeps the market price of employees (specifically the extremely talented ones) artificially low. In the extreme it would be similar to price fixing. This is good for Larry and Sergei and Steve, but not good for the rest of us.

They shouldn't be making any agreements about hiring practices. (Gentlemen's or not).

borism• 16 years ago

Spot on!

Here's much better analysis:

excerpt:

It's not just that their actions are shameful.

It's not just that these actions violate everything Silicon Valley represents.

These agreements reveal a profound insecurity about their ability to compete on free and fair terms with one another.

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_16167551

cilantro2• 16 years ago

Exactly. These deals were not really Apple vs. Google. The real contest was managers vs. employees. In this case managers were cooperating to suppress the pay of engineers. Now without this collusion, engineers are free to extract greater rents for their services.

dspeyer• 16 years ago

If that were really the point, wouldn't they have expanded this to more companies? Microsoft? Oracle? Yahoo?

yardie• 16 years ago

steal? I wasn't aware that you could own someone in the modern world.

Poach, entice, lure, certainly, but steal?

kj12345• 16 years ago

I think it's right to be strict on this given that the labor market is so asymmetrical even without anti-poaching collusion. Employers get detailed resumes, credit reports, references, and often salary history before hiring. Employees are expected to believe the company's marketing about being a great place to work, get no references, and the salaries of others at the company are kept secret. Hopefully sites like http://www.glassdoor.com can help to even out this imbalance.

mmt• 16 years ago

Hopefully sites like http://www.glassdoor.com can help to even out this imbalance.

Agreed. I'm a huge fan of glassdoor and would encourage everyone (including managers/founders) to participate.

They seem to encourage balance and only criticism that is constructive.

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

Imagine these compianies controlled who offered you cars, or siding, or which schools your kids got invited to. Its not a decision they have the right to make for their employees - its paternal and selfish.

I know, its just cold calls, and smaller companies make these agreements (or just don't do it out of respect). But these are not small companies. They must behave differently.

zephyrfalcon2• 16 years ago

"Imagine these compianies controlled who offered you cars, or siding, or which schools your kids got invited to. Its not a decision they have the right to make for their employees"

And so they don't. All these companies decided was that THEY don't aggressively try to recruit employees from certain other companies. They are not "controlling" anything. Their employees are free to apply wherever they want, including other companies that were part of the informal agreement, and those companies are free to hire them if they want.

I agree that recruiting employees from other companies isn't "stealing", and the argument that this agreement could artificially lower wages isn't unreasonable either. However, some people seem to be jumping to conclusions here. The agreement does NOT mean that someone cannot move from e.g. Google to Apple (etc), nor that Google would sue Apple if they did, nor that any of these companies "control" where their employees are going.

JoeAltmaier2• 16 years ago

That's why I said "Imagine". My point being that this is a small step, but in the wrong direction.

natemartin• 16 years ago

How often do people recruit through cold-calls anymore?

I was at one of the companies mentioned, and was contacted by a recruiter from another one of the companies menteioned, but they contacted me through linked-in, not through a cold-call.

Did the agreement really matter anymore with all the alternative ways of communicating?

(I ended up leaving where I was, but didn't go to the place that was recruiting me.)

warmfuzzykitten• 16 years ago

Life may be complicated, but the antitrust laws are very simple. Competitors may not collude. Ever. Even if some random blogger whines about it.

DoJ: Apple, Google Now Free to Steal Each Other's Staff; This Is Better How?

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