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

Unless you have a legal non compete agreement, that would be illegal and unfair to any employee no matter what secret agreement you have, especially when you are a public company. I love Apple but Steve was sue happy, and wanted to take down anyone who competed with them, that scenario no longer works in today's world.

rmwebs said:

Uh. Palm became non-existent in 2010. HP bought them. Surely "recent setbacks" is a bit of an understatement?

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Yes. perhaps understated. My point remains though.

KnightWRX said:

Corporations are legal entities. Sure, people are running them, but like you said, they run them for the good of the company and its shareholders, not for the good of its customers and employees. It's not a "poor me" statement, my statement was more about "poor the people who defend big corps when they don't even have a stake in them".

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Hummmm.... I've always been grateful that my selfish company pays me a great salary so that I can afford to do all the wonderful things I do.

Sorry... I stand by my statements... I can only think of company I've ever worked for where I felt like the CEO and management was not considering their employees in their decisions.

samcraig said:

Do I blame Jobs for trying? No. It's what made sense business wise.

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Murdering the CEOs of all of your competitors might also make sense business wise. But I would blame anybody who tried.

Making moolah is no excuse for illegal and immoral actions. Indeed, it is often the impetus behind immoral and illegal actions. Profiting off of criminal behaviour is not OK.

iGrip said:

Murdering the CEOs of all of your competitors might also make sense business wise. But I would blame anybody who tried.

Making moolah is no excuse for illegal and immoral actions. Indeed, it is often the impetus behind immoral and illegal actions. Profiting off of criminal behaviour is not OK.

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Did you read my entire comment? I agree - what he did was not OK to me. But analogizing killing a person to what transpired here isn't the same.

samcraig said:

Did you read my entire comment? I agree - what he did was not OK to me. But analogizing killing a person to what transpired here isn't the same.

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They are both illegal and immoral. The difference is merely one of degree.

iGrip said:

They are both illegal and immoral. The difference is merely one of degree.

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Exactly.

Popeye206 said:

Hummmm.... I've always been grateful that my selfish company pays me a great salary so that I can afford to do all the wonderful things I do.

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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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iGrip said:

They are both illegal and immoral. The difference is merely one of degree.

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Killing is also criminal.

Puevlo said:

What a legend. And he wasn't threatening Palm to make more money or be a jerk. He was making sure people like us would always have the best products available because the best people would be able to work on them. We should be grateful.

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OMG. We should have just locked this thread here. This is sad.

KnightWRX said:

Apple and frankly every other big name corp is guilty of that :

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/b...ax-states-and-nations.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&

Apple are no saints. No one is. Everyone looks to game the system to profit. Why do people defend big corps, whoever they are ? Big Corps don't care about any of us and won't defend us.

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You're completely correct. I was merely commenting on the absurd comment that bribery for tax evasion purposes somehow doesn't harm anyone.

AppleLover12345 said:

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.

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Not for your country.

Apple the biggest scum of them all? Then just why the F are you here?

You also fail to see reasoning of this behaviour - a company like Palm would do ANYTHING to get inside information of another company; even if it means poaching employees with empty promises then firing them a few months after.

Jobs didn't make Apple from being nice; this is the business world.

Sy7ygy said:

Not for your country.

Apple the biggest scum of them all? Then just why the F are you here?

You also fail to see reasoning of this behaviour - a company like Palm would do ANYTHING to get inside information of another company; even if it means poaching employees with empty promises then firing them a few months after.

Jobs didn't make Apple from being nice; this is the business world.

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A company like Apple would do ANYTHING to get inside information of another company; even if it means poaching employees with empty promises then firing them a few months after.

Another example of Steve Jobs being a cry baby. Enough said.

Oh how my head hurts from reading all these replies. I find it kind of funny how some people get P'd off when people come here talking up Samsung. And then a story like this comes out and those same people are throwing Samsung's name around to make Apple sound....not as bad.
Why is it that many of the threads and replies are always well Jobs was a genius....If it wasn't for Jobs blah blah blah. But then this story comes out and some people are like...well hes not the only one that does this...all the big corps do this..Samsung did this and that.
Some of you come up with the lamest crap to defend Jobs/Apple. Its kind of sickening.

Wicked1 said:

Unless you have a legal non compete agreement, that would be illegal and unfair to any employee no matter what secret agreement you have, especially when you are a public company. I love Apple but Steve was sue happy, and wanted to take down anyone who competed with them, that scenario no longer works in today's world.

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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.

Battlefield Fan said:

What an angry man Stevd was. I like him less and less each day. Not that Tim is doing a better job though.

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What a great leader and manager was he.. He was working with great talent and he did everything he could to protect them from the greedy poachers.. I can't see anything wrong in that tbh..

RIP Steve..

samcraig said:

A company like Apple would do ANYTHING to get inside information of another company; even if it means poaching employees with empty promises then firing them a few months after.

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That reply would work if you were talking about another company.

Palm have a track record of totally awful products and look where it lead them?

AppleLover12345 said:

And people call Samsung scum.

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Why do we NOT have downvoting here FFS?

Companies spend huge amount of time and effort (hence money) training employees, it is natural they want to protect their investment.

A fresh employee usually arrive with a set of predisposed 'skills' but given the chance to improve and polish them. The employee wins. The company wins.

Fortune 500 should push for legalization of no-poaching agreements. Sure they miss out better offers but if the employee weren't given the chance in the first place then they might be jobless today.

I worked as a general manager for a high technology company in California in the 90's when this type of 'Non Compete' contract and agreement between two competitors was running rampant. To make a long story short, you cannot restrict current or former employees from making a living in his preferred craft. A couple of trips to court proved it.

Sy7ygy said:

That reply would work if you were talking about another company.

Palm have a track record of totally awful products and look where it lead them?

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Palm had a strong foothold in the industry long before Apple came around. Either your memory is short or you're being obtuse. If you believe that Apple wouldn't have wanted inside info on Palm, you're naive. If you think Apple didn't then you didn't even read the article being quoted. Let me help you...

"...during the last year or so, as Apple geared up to compete with Palm in the phone space, Apple hired at least 2% of Palm's workforce."

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toughboy said:

Why do we NOT have downvoting here FFS?

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I'd be careful what you wished for. Based on your posts in this thread. I'm not sure you'd wind up "ahead" when it comes to votes...

Battlefield Fan said:

What an angry man Stevd was. I like him less and less each day. Not that Tim is doing a better job though.

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Yes, especially if you read his biography, it's clear he is not a nice man. But then again, as the saying goes, nice guys finish last...

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AppleLover12345 said:

Well, aside from the upper management, what you're proposing is already happening.
Over half of Silicon Valley employees as Asian. IBM is also replacing almost all their American R&D staff with Asians & Indians. IBM expects by the latter-half of this decade, over 70% of their engineers will be of Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Indian descent.

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Many are Asian-American (most), but I guess you don't consider anyone non-Caucasian to be American?

There is a reason why there are so many Asians in high-tech; education is something families take very seriously. If you want more non-Asians in high-tech, hopefully you can convince their communities to place an equally high emphasis on education.

toughboy said:

What a great leader and manager was he.. He was working with great talent and he did everything he could to protect them from the greedy poachers.. I can't see anything wrong in that tbh..

RIP Steve..

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Greedy poachers ? Hum... poachers often come and offer you better than what you have to work for them, not less. How does that make them greedy ?

And seeing how he was responsible for poaching employees himself, how does "protecting his own" yet "poaching from others" make him anything but a damn hypocrite ?

burrito said:

my heart bleeds.

it's not that i'm saying that steve was right, but the sensationalism around this story is getting blown out of proportion. employees were not forbidden from leaving for a competitor, steve was simply requesting that the competitors stop poachin' his dudes. illegal request, nonetheless, but if this isn't the ultimate case of "first world problems"... for the people that say this is a case of modern-day slavery, bear in mind that the employees in question likely made more money than all of the posters in this thread combined.

if you're looking to spit in the face of greedy corporate executives, there are bigger hills to die on than this.

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First statement: Steve was "simply requesting"?! Ummm...no, it sounds like he was using the threat of litigation to coerce Palm to do something illegal.

Second statement: Yes, there are bigger examples of corporate greed, but some of the anti-Jobs / anti-Apple reaction being found here is probably a result of the the unconditional worship that Apple fanatics give to Apple and Jobs (where Apple/Jobs can do no wrong). Those fanatics tend to ignore that there are flaws with all things Apple and this article is a good counter-point to that POV.

toughboy said:

What a great leader and manager was he.. He was working with great talent and he did everything he could to protect them from the greedy poachers.. I can't see anything wrong in that tbh..

RIP Steve..

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