Steve Jobs Threatened Palm with Patent Suit Over No-Hire Policy

The Verge has copies of the paper trail. Eric Schmdit up to his eyeballs in this too.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3...e-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-didnt-want-you-to-see

Unggoy Murderer said:

Yeah, I do... Steve was doing what he could to do what was right. Palm wasn't playing ball. The agreement between the big companies wouldn't exist if it was wrong or unfair. And, did you even read the links that were served to you?

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Glad it was Google that bought Android. If not, Steve would have threatened Android too and it probably would have buckled to the threats..

Kudos to Google for standing up to the Thermonuclear War..

swingerofbirch said:

I was trying to figure out why anyone outside of cycling enthusiasts cared that Lance Armstrong used drugs. I think it's because people want to believe you can achieve any level of success using the same kindness and ethics that most people are capable of using in their daily lives. Otherwise our political system and the highest echelons of capitalist success have a barrier to entry. They're not systems free from the need to abuse others. I thought that was the irony of the Oprah interview. I don't know that Oprah has been in wooly fights to attain her success, but as I watched the interview, it occurred to me I was watching two titans, only one of whom's dirty laundry has been revealed.

Steve Jobs comes off terribly. It seems pretty reflective of what's been reported about both him and Apple for years. As a child I saw Apple as Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. In recent years they've seemed more like Scientology.

I do think there are more ethical companies, like Costco, for example. Google strikes me as a more ethical company. It seems more sincerely interested in innovation than domination. At the least I can say if I were able to work for either, it would be google.

it is a shame what happened to palm. It was another company that really cared about product.

While it make take some unusual self belief and willingness to tread on others to attain any great success, I think that there are degrees of these traits and it's important to try not to reward or ignore them because of the benefits we get, that is ignoring reckless driving in the case of Steve Jobs because of the value people placed on him.

And while these traits are common, it's more unusual that an entire company models itself after the somewhat pathological personality of its former CEO, going as far as to codify it with Apple University. It goes back to my comparison of Apple to cults.

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You had me till Google.

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As a company shareholder I expect any CEO to protect the company and it's employees

jontech said:

[/COLOR]As a company shareholder I expect any CEO to protect the company and it's employees

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Using legal means, not illegal ones

Rogifan said:

The Verge has copies of the paper trail. Eric Schmdit up to his eyeballs in this too.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/23/3...e-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-didnt-want-you-to-see

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Eric Schmidt could be just as guilty as SJ. But only SJ will get the criticism and flak from the Big Media.

But Schmidt will likely get a free pass, because... most people, even 99% of Android users, have no clue who the hell he is, or what he looks like.

AppleLover12345 said:

And people call Samsung scum.

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You would call Apple scum because of this?

Or have you been waiting for some time for a negative story to come up on MacRumors?

For anyone interested, here's the list of companies Apple had some sort of do-not-hire on:

AppleScruff1 said:

He sure was an arrogant, conceited, manipulating man.

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Absolutely. I've also been in a company where a co-director was a scared clueless ****, and he operated in exactly the same way. When luckily he ended up with a great product thanks to the skills of his employees, he protected it by threats, fraud, and bullying tactics, rather than in any way trying to encourage our employees to carry on creating great things.

The outpouring of hero-worship that followed Jobs' death was just bonkers. What was that about?

There are some guys at Apple who can do great stuff that matters. With luck, they may now be allowed to get on with doing it, and with a lot more luck they might be able to avoid getting too bogged down in lawsuits on the way. I'm sure the same applies at Samsung and Microsoft (and Google, probably).

rmwebs said:

For anyone interested, here's the list of companies Apple had some sort of do-not-hire on:

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Wow... that list is like.... ALL of the big players in the US tech industry.

Oh but let me guess.... the Media selectively reports Apple as the only guilty party in this whole fiasco.

Solomani said:

You need a girlfriend to break your eggs?

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They are supreme masters of egg busting.

If an employee is offered a job elsewhere but you want to keep them, then you offer them something better!
A slave is 'One bound in servitude as the property of a person or household.'
If one can't get a job anywhere in your industry you are a commodified and effectively bound in servitude.
Jobs' attitude is despicable.

Solomani said:

Wow... that list is like.... ALL of the big players in the US tech industry.

Oh but let me guess.... the Media selectively reports Apple as the only guilty party in this whole fiasco.

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It's not just the media. It's also Judge Lucy Koh.

She and most people don't realize how the non poaching agreements keep high level people from taking information from secret projects to another company and using it to furthur their personal agenda.

And some of you should spend some time on Wall Street to get a taste of back room deals.

This whole country is corrupt. Not just the tech industry.

Didn't the DOJ went after Apple and other companies for this anti-trust issue?

(conspiring with competitors to limit competitions)


And last year, the DOJ and the EU anti-trust commission also went after Apple for conspiring with book publishers to fix the price of ebook.

Most publishers have settled with both the DOJ and the EU that will allow retailers to compete against each others by offering discount.

Before the price fixing: ebookstores are allowed to compete, offer discount, price competition possible.
After the price fixing: ebook prices are fixed (same prices everywhere), no retail price competition possible.
After the settlement: ebookstores are allowed to compete, offer discount, price competition possible.

Peace said:

It's not just the media. It's also Judge Lucy Koh.

She and most people don't realize how the non poaching agreements keep high level people from taking information from secret projects to another company and using it to furthur their personal agenda.

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Judge Koh has already presided over the huge Samsung-Apple case. She is probably already sick and tired of both companies, and probably irritated at both, and probably has formed biased opinions on both Samsung and Apple.

She should be relieved of her duties in presiding over THIS (poaching) case, and the jurisdiction should be handed to another judge.

I think passion is getting in the way a little, here (now that's a surprise). According to the account and the Verge paper trail, companies in Silicon Valley had rules about poaching - that is the active solicitation of staff in another company. But, for the most part it does not say anything about not recruiting people from those companies if they initiate the discussion.

In some ways, it's understandable - if your company does consultancy and has got consultants on site with a customer, what's to stop your consultants finding the customer's best staff, hiring them and then selling them back to your customer as consultants?

In practise, stopping someone from joining another company is legally questionable and its difficult to prove poaching in any case. If someone leaves Company A for Company B and then tells all his company A friends over a beer that Company B is a great place to work and they should apply for these vacancies.

article way back in 2010

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/24/anti-poaching-agreements/
DoJ Confirms And Settles Apple/Google Anti-Poaching Deal. Apple And Adobe Had One Too?!

Back in June of last year, a report in The Washington Post stated that the U.S. Department of Justice had begun a probe looking into the hiring practices of some of tech’s biggest companies. The probe was at its early stages at that point, but they were specifically looking into if any companies had agreements in place not to recruit one another’s workers. In August of last year, we reported that two of those companies, Apple and Google, did have such an agreement in place — and we even obtained an email that seemed to confirm it. Neither Google nor Apple responded to our request for a comment on the issue. Of course, they couldn’t sidestep the DoJ so easily. And today, the government is announcing a settlement on the issue.

Specifically, the DoJ is saying it is settling with six companies — Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, and Pixar — ensuring that they will not enter into no solicitation agreements for employees going forward. In the complaint and settlement proposal they’re filing today, the DoJ is saying their findings indicate that there were agreements in place between a mixture of these companies over the years that prevented poaching. Here’s how they outlined it:

According to the complaint, the six companies entered into agreements that restrained competition between them for highly skilled employees. The agreements between Apple and Google, Apple and Adobe, Apple and Pixar and Google and Intel prevented the companies from directly soliciting each other’s employees. An agreement between Google and Intuit prevented Google from directly soliciting Intuit employees.

Again, Apple and Google is the one we reported on.The DoJ says:

Beginning no later than 2006, Apple and Google executives agreed not to cold call each other’s employees. Apple placed Google on its internal “Do Not Call List,” which instructed employees not to directly solicit employees from the listed companies. Similarly, Google listed Apple among the companies that had special agreements with Google and were part of the “Do Not Cold Call” list.

After a friend and I read Isaacson's biography I asked my friend, 'Having read it, do you respect Steve Jobs more or less than you did before?' He thought briefly and then answered, 'Both!' I have to agree.

Steve Jobs, and the subject of his character, really tends to divide people here—as if he was either a heroic genius who could do no wrong, or a completely evil tyrant.

Look, the reason he's such an interesting person, is that he can't be so easily pigeonholed. He wasn't a saint, and he wasn't the devil. He was brilliant. He made mistakes. He was insightful. He was stubborn. He was charismatic. He was manipulating. He inspired people to great things. He alienated others. He was sensitive. He could be cruel. He spoke a lot of wisdom. He was a hypocrite. He genuinely cared about the customer experience. He tried to stifle competition. We could go on and on.

So, enjoy trying to paint this guy as either a good apple or completely rotten. I don't think it's so black and white. He was a lot of things, some good and some not so—a colourful character that is for sure. A lot like this apple in fact:

Slavery?

Wouldn't you still be free to quit Apple and get hired by Google if you like to?
How is that slavery?

Isn't poaching such an aggressive move to hurt a competitor,
that you probably wouldn't do it anyway?

Wouldn't Apple likely be able to poach all android developers given their huge bank account?

AppleLover12345 said:

*yawn*
Where did I deny that Samsung wasn't scum or that they were never involved in illegal activities? I'm saying that it's hypocritical of Apple fanboys to proclaim that Samsung was scum and not mention the scum-like activities of Apple.
And just because other companies participated doesn't make it right. You have the morals of a 3-year-old. The way I see it, Apple is the biggest scum of them all. They make Samsung look like Mother Teresa. All Samsung is involved with is bribery of Korean politicians to get tax cuts and even more tax cuts, which doesn't really harm anyone. Apple's activities, on the other hand...

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Yeah, Steve Jobs was the worst human being who ever lived. Far worse than Hitler or Attila the Hun. He had the unmitigated gaul to play hardball so Apple could move to the top and stay there. What a scumbag. How could he sink to such depths of depravity. Grow up.

What did all that chest beating get Steve Jobs? A nice plot where the worms are eating him now.

NoneOfYourB said:

Wouldn't Apple likely be able to poach all android developers given their huge bank account?

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Why not? It is not illegal.

Peace said:

It's not just the media. It's also Judge Lucy Koh.

She and most people don't realize how the non poaching agreements keep high level people from taking information from secret projects to another company and using it to furthur their personal agenda.

And some of you should spend some time on Wall Street to get a taste of back room deals.

This whole country is corrupt. Not just the tech industry.

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That kind of information is protected by NDAs. Changing jobs does not mean you get to talk about secret projects owned by your former employer.

EbookReader said:

After the settlement: ebookstores are allowed to compete, offer discount, price competition possible.

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They are "allowed" but can't because of amazons price-dumping scheme
that effectively destroys all competition.

Peace said:

She and most people don't realize how the non poaching agreements keep high level people from taking information from secret projects to another company and using it to furthur their personal agenda.

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So you are suggesting what? That Rubenstein had inside info on Apple's early iPhone plans and defected to Palm to help them steal the idea and start working on a competitor (i.e., WebOS and the Pre)? Sorry, but the timing doesn't add up. Palm didnt even announce WebOS until early 2009. Apple had announced 2 years earlier, and had the iPhone on the market for 18 months before Palm responded at all. Rubenstein didn't even move to Palm until 2007.

I agree that tech companies want to poach in the hopes of gleaning info into a competitors upcoming tech or strategy. But the entirety of your comments on this thread suggest that you might think Jobs was pissed with Rubenstein for the same reason he was pissed with Schmidt. And I have a hard time buying that.

why not just add a clauses to your employees contract that prevents u from going to the competition within a certain time period. thats the most common thing here. like if i was working at IBM i could not quit and go to the competition working in the same field for 2 years or so