Emails, court docs show how Sony stood up to Steve Jobs’ and Pixar’s wage-fixing

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

by mshafrir • 12 years ago

201 90 12 years ago

pando.com

anateus• 12 years ago

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

chaostheory2• 12 years ago

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

chubot• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

"All 307 salaries posted anonymously by Pixar employees."

samstave3• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

samstave3• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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?

incision• 12 years ago

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-...

cookiecaper16• 12 years ago

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.

corysama• 12 years ago

Quick reminder to everyone: Please don't downvote comments that contribute to the conversation just because you disagree with them.

You might think that cookiecaper is an insensitive clod. But, he's not posting fluff, off-topic or otherwise distracting material.

wpietri• 12 years ago

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.

yarrel• 12 years ago

The no-poach agreements were clearly made in good faith between the parties involved.

It's the parties who were not party to the agreement but whose wage-earning potential was affected by it that are the problem.

brown9-2• 12 years ago

What are the good intentions you think someone could hypothetically have?

lr• 12 years ago

I can see what you are saying (however, I don't agree), but I think there is a bigger issue afoot: there are just too few companies that do any one thing, i.e., in a world of 7+ billion people, there are only a handful of companies that make feature-length CG films that the majority (of movie ticket buyers on the planet) watches. Because of this, those handful of companies are a virtual monopoly (cartel), and can, and do act in this bad way.

confluence2• 12 years ago

What about this part?

We don’t have a no raid arrangement with Sony. We have set up one with ILM [Lucasfilm] and Dreamworks which has worked quite well. I probably should go down and meet with Sandy and Penney and Sony to reach some agreement. Our people are become [sic] really desirable and we need to nip this in the bud.

mullingitover2• 12 years ago

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.

Depressed wages are the whole point. The no-poach collusion is there to prevent the companies involved from being in a position where they need to make a counteroffer to retain their talent.

vanwesson• 12 years ago

Steve Jobs once said in reference to Ed Catmull (and another Pixar co-founder):

"They're babes in the woods. I think I can help turn Alvy and Ed into businessmen."[1]

I guess training Mr. Catmull to do things like what we see in the above email was part of it...

1: http://izquotes.com/quote/240878

egypturnash• 12 years ago

I'm an ex-animator. Reading the bit you excerpted didn't sound too bad at first - talking frankly about how someone burnt out is a pretty realistic view. Animation burns a lot of people out.

The "she isn't so bad that she'd hurt Sony" starts to sound bad. But it really gets bad after the part you excerpted:

We don’t have a no raid arrangement with Sony. We have set up one with ILM [Lucasfilm] and Dreamworks which has worked quite well. I probably should go down and meet with Sandy and Penney and Sony to reach some agreement. Our people are become [sic] really desirable and we need to nip this in the bud.

At which point I was like, dude, fuck you Ed.

hyp0• 12 years ago

That specific quote sounds like a reasonable and fair assessment of a person with potential.

I would expect the discussion to move to how could they keep her (more money, better position, or just extol the long-term benefits of staying), whether she was worth the cost of keeping her, the long term consequences on Sony and other employees etc. But unfortunately, he instead suggests a "no raid agreement" with Sony and that:

Our people are becoming really desireable and we need to nip this in the bud.

EDIT reading the whole thing, I see one aspect of Catmull's concern that seems reasonable. Entrants want to grow fast, and therefore offer unrealistically and unsustainably high wages - it's a bubble. It's disruptive to keep losing the people that you've trained - and then, the competitor goes out of business anyway. This hurts the industry as a whole, the employees and employers.

Successful industry problems. But it's up to employees what they think is in their best interest - not for employers to decide.

DanBC• 12 years ago

"Good but fragile" - under English law this communication risks falling foul of disability discrimination and also health and safety law (protecting employees from harm, which includes stress).

I have no idea how it works in the US.

cookiecaper16• 12 years ago

It really depends on what was meant by "fragile". I read it as meaning that she was thin-skinned or temperamental (and therefore "fragile", i.e., she must be handled with unusual care in discussions or she'll react badly), not that she was unhealthy.

sergiotapia• 12 years ago

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

njloof• 12 years ago

Pretty bad: http://pando.com/tag/techtopus/

greenyoda• 12 years ago

If you missed the countless articles on HN about the anti-poaching collusion case in which Apple, Google and other companies were implicated, this article provides a good overview:

Apple and Google’s wage-fixing involved dozens more companies, over 1M employees

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7449737

jonknee• 12 years ago

Not really, this case has long provided ample evidence that it was/is rampant and completely overt amongst the inner circle of CEOs in the Valley. It's actually quite centered around Steve Jobs, which means we're never going to get the high drama that something of this magnitude deserves.

ranran876• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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

forrestthewoods• 12 years ago

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_mahan3• 12 years ago

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.

samstave3• 12 years ago

I think the thing is that while people can do good things, they can also do really bad/weird things to others when all of their hierarchy of needs is met.

I he has money, power, comfort, is top-of-his-game -- then its very easy to really act as though it is a game and his actions only strengthening his position and the position of the system that supports his position (the company).

So in his mind, he is just being efficient/business minded/shrewd etc... and doesn't realize he is actually fucking up the lives of others -- he is only seeing it from his own perspective; that he is an effective person making shit-tons of money.

Utter lack of compassion/human perspective.

cookiecaper16• 12 years ago

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.

chaostheory2• 12 years ago

Just because someone made a mistake, it shouldn't automatically make all of their work 'evil'.

dba7dba• 12 years ago

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• 12 years ago

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.

confluence2• 12 years ago

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.

paulhauggis• 12 years ago

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

erichocean• 12 years ago

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...

dang• 12 years ago

Url changed from http://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/pixars-ed-catmull-emerge..., which points to this.

vijayr• 12 years ago

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

rdl• 12 years ago

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.

Emails, court docs show how Sony stood up to Steve Jobs’ and Pixar’s wage-fixing

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