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

SlCKB0Y said:

Huh? Wow. So you have no problem with massively limiting an employees chances of successfully gaining employment with another company... in effect forcing them to remain with their current employer regardless of how deficient the pay and working conditions are? All just so you can have your shiny little toy?

Are you serious?

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They were working for Apple!! You guys are talking like Steve was enslaving people to dig gold in Cupertino mines

If those same people will take the special know-how of what differentiates a product elsewhere, yes I'd do very same to keep my workers in house.

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leroypants said:

I can't tell if you are serious or just trolling....

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Why would I be trolling..

You guys own your own manufacturing company and we'll talk again if you still wouldn't do what Steve has done. He fiercely protected his talent, so what.. I'd do the same any day if I had that kind of power..

toughboy said:

If those same people will take the special know-how of what differentiates a product, yes I'd do very same to keep my workers in house.

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Then maybe, as a company, you should make it desirable to only work there instead of blackmailing (yes. that's what that exchange was) another company - so that the employee has no desire to leave. Whether he/she is approached or not by the competition.

samcraig said:

Palm had a strong foothold in the industry long before Apple came around. Either your memory is short or you're being obtuse.

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I think he is ...

So, Steve used a potential patent-oriented litigation threat as leverage to threaten Palm?

Why am I not surprised in the slightest?

toughboy said:

They were working for Apple!! You guys are talking like Steve was enslaving people to dig gold in Cupertino mines

If those same people will take the special know-how of what differentiates a product elsewhere, yes I'd do very same to keep my workers in house.

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If a competitor offers your employee better working competitions to go work for him, instead of trying to artificially limit his career opportunities through illegal means, maybe as an employer should just pay that employee his actual worth ?

Just a thought.

Popeye206 said:

......
"Big corps" are made of people. People who have to make sometimes hard decisions for the good of the company and shareholders. Yes, I think there are some executives that are less caring than others, but blanket "poor me" junk statements like this are silly.

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Indeed "Big corps" are made of "Human Resource".

"Big corps" have "HR department", not "labour department" "employee department". Human is just a resource to "Big corps", no different than aluminium, plastic and energy for making the products.

Unggoy Murderer said:

I think he's perfectly okay to protect his company and employees, and therefore their hard work from being lost to another company.

To be honest, I'd do anything to have someone with Steve's stance on poaching leading my company...

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I hope this is sarcastic rather than stupid.

Terrible. This practice should be outlawed. If you want top talent, pay top dollar.

toughboy said:

You guys own your own manufacturing company and we'll talk again if you still wouldn't do what Steve has done. He fiercely protected his talent, so what.. I'd do the same any day if I had that kind of power..

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You (and Steve or any other corp exec) should be protecting their talent by providing competitive salaries, treating employees with respect, and providing meaningful means of employee feedback and then affecting change when needed. If you can effectively do this, then there's a high probability you will lose very little talent, if at all. Entering into agreements with other companies to limit hiring is shady and illegal. If you plan on doing on that someday, then I feel sorry for your employees (and frankly, I hope they use the law to their advantage to fight back against you).

iLike Steve Jobs !

KnightWRX said:

But are you also grateful they prevent all those other nasty competitors from making you a better offer so that you're getting paid what you're worth instead of artificially limiting your own personal career growth ?

Because that's what we're discussing here. Big corps looking out for their bottom line, at the cost of your career and advancement opportunities.

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Yup. It's what I signed up for. I picked my company (and companies in the past) because I believed in their products. I've been approached by head hunters and I always blew them off. But then again, I've never had an issue getting a job.

Building your career on jumping ship to the highest bidder only goes so far... at some point you have to dig in and dedicate yourself to something.

AppleLover12345 said:

And people call Samsung scum.

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Right. Samesung only copied Apple's patented designs which makes them a much more upstanding company.

Sheesh.

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GoldenJoe said:

Terrible. This practice should be outlawed. If you want top talent, pay top dollar.

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It is unlawful and if found guilty, Apple, Google, etc. will have a huge fine to pay.

Popeye206 said:

Building your career on jumping ship to the highest bidder only goes so far... at some point you have to dig in and dedicate yourself to something.

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You can do both. They aren't mutually exclusive.

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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Why would you insult someone by saying "you have the morals of a 3-year-old"? Did you honestly think you could slam Apple and not get some sort of reaction on a rather pro-Apple discussion board? Since this is an area to discuss things, you should intelligently make your case (and so should Apple fanboys), but there is not need to insult others. We don't want people to think that we have the maturity of 3-year-olds! (Disclaimer: That was a joke. I don't want people to think I am being insulting!)

Of course Steve (and Apple) was the master of 'borrowed' technology (eg: the mouse from Xerox...just one among many).

And the master of using lawyers to hold on to market share.

Interesting how the champions of capitalism only think the rules should apply to others but never themselves.

Wow!! talk about a megalomaniac psychotic untrusting mental problems attitude! I think all those 60's drugs seriously messed with Jobs head!
This is utterly disgusting behaviour, that you work for one company and they effectively ban you from then working with select other high value big name company's! Apple and the rest almost destroying any freedom rights of employee's in one highly illegal go.

I seriously hope they are found guilty of this, it certainly seems like they 100% are if they attempted to get the document banned from the public, and I hope they are severely fined and are heavily monitored for several year by governing agencies.

I personally would put this up their higher then Microsoft forcing everyone to use Internet Explorer, and that didn't end well for them..

But to threaten to sue another company and ignore all employee's and citizens rights to work for whoever they want.. wow that is pretty bad, pretty bad. The government will be forced to act on these company's if they are found to be guilty because it's a blatant and clear breach of the law, no matter how you spin it, this is no patents game, this is choosing to ignore employee's rights of America.

sseaton1971 said:

Why would you insult someone by saying "you have the morals of a 3-year-old"? Did you honestly think you could slam Apple and not get some sort of reaction on a rather pro-Apple discussion board? Since this is an area to discuss things, you should intelligently make your case (and so should Apple fanboys), but there is not need to insult others. We don't want people to think that we have the maturity of 3-year-olds! (Disclaimer: That was a joke. I don't want people to think I am being insulting!)

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So....just because this is a "pro-apple discussion board" everyone's opinion has to be positive towards Apple no matter what the situation or what they do? No one can say how they feel good or bad without being attacked? If thats the case its very sad. You should try and be a little more open-minded.

Popeye206 said:

Yup. It's what I signed up for. I picked my company (and companies in the past) because I believed in their products. I've been approached by head hunters and I always blew them off. But then again, I've never had an issue getting a job.

Building your career on jumping ship to the highest bidder only goes so far... at some point you have to dig in and dedicate yourself to something.

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Sure, but that doesn't mean that others shouldn't be able to offer you better opportunaties, which can also just give you some leverage to negotiate better wages/advantages with your current employer.

No one is forced or coerced to change jobs here. It's not like Microsoft can just swoop into 1 Infinite Loop and pick up a few employees. These guys have to also be willing to leave Apple.

So these anti-poaching agreements only serve to destroy the power balance between employees and employers, giving the employers all the power in negotiations.

I've also blown off head hunters in my days, but really, it's nice to have the offers on the table. Sometimes, working for a company is quite different than what you think and no matter how much "you believe", there comes a point where working for someone might not be as green as the image it projects to the outside world.

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DaveN said:

Right. Samesung only copied Apple's patented designs which makes them a much more upstanding company.

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Please don't go there. Apple have also been found guilty of patent infringement numerous times in their history, so you're not going to make them out to be good guys by bringing up that off-topic nonsense about patents.

Popeye206 said:

Yup. It's what I signed up for. I picked my company (and companies in the past) because I believed in their products. I've been approached by head hunters and I always blew them off. But then again, I've never had an issue getting a job.

Building your career on jumping ship to the highest bidder only goes so far... at some point you have to dig in and dedicate yourself to something.

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With all due respect, I think you're missing the point. You SHOULD be picking companies that you want to work for and because you believe in their products. However, imagine you work for a semiconductor company and you're a leading engineer in this field. Now imagine Apple investing in this area because they believe they can design a new chip that will rival the computing power and power consumption specs of anything in existence. They'd like to hire you. Should they be allowed to approach you? I'm betting that in this scenario, you would say 'yes, they should be allowed to' and possibly, you might even be interested in hearing what Apple has to say. And I think Apple SHOULD be allowed to approach you.

This is what Palm is contending (that they should be allowed to approach folks with the best talent regardless of their current employer). However, the agreement that Apple, Google, et al had in place would prevent Apple from approaching you.

jasvncnt said:

So....just because this is a "pro-apple discussion board" everyone's opinion has to be positive towards Apple no matter what the situation or what they do? No one can say how they feel good or bad without being attacked? If thats the case its very sad. You should try and be a little more open-minded.

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He's confused with Apple Insider. MacRumors is mostly neutral in regards to Apple, except for a few posters here and there on each side. The vast majority are here because they are Apple users and interested in what Apple does, good or bad.

KnightWRX said:

He's confused with Apple Insider. MacRumors is mostly neutral in regards to Apple, except for a few posters here and there on each side. The vast majority are here because they are Apple users and interested in what Apple does, good or bad.

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That's partly true. In general there is a tone that Apple is right whatever it does. Although there is the occasional whining when Apple charges too much (really, Apple would over charge?) for their products.

Can someone explain, did this agreement they had ban the company's from poaching staff from each other, or did it also stop them from hiring employees from these other company's who approached them? Like an Apple employee just apply's for a Palm job but due to the agreement Palm weren't allowed to hire them?

thekev said:

This didn't need to devolve into an Apple vs Samsung thread. Is whose has the biggest scumbags on their board really a productive discussion? Palm was correct in trying to resist illegal activity. The agreement is still wrong and unfair. The purpose would have been to retain employees at their current salary levels while that same company retains all of their existing tools for hiring and firing practices.

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Thank you... I don't know why people can't have a discussion without insulting each other.

Steve's "proposal" was wrong, and Palm was right to flat-out reject it. This doesn't mean Steve was a bad CEO or a terrible person. Why Samsung was even injected into this discussion about an article about Steve Jobs and Palm is beyond me.

thekev said:

At least a number of those companies have significant bases in California. In California non-competes are not enforceable. You might already know that, but I wanted to include it in reference to your statement.

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Nope news to me, however it would be hard to prevent any employer and employee from not being able to work for a company unless there is something specific in a contract like with CEO's or upper level execs, but basic employees, that non compete stuff is hard to enforce anywhere else.

jasvncnt said:

So....just because this is a "pro-apple discussion board" everyone's opinion has to be positive towards Apple no matter what the situation or what they do? No one can say how they feel good or bad without being attacked? If thats the case its very sad. You should try and be a little more open-minded.

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No, everyone should be able to make their case for or against Apple (or whoever they want) without being insulted by others. There was no reason for telling someone they have the "morals of a 3-year-old" simply because of a disagreement. People should be able to say what they want without being attacked. How am I not being open-minded?