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I can see both sides. If you have one companies IP in your knoggen, you wouldnt want that going to a competitor. But if the competitor is offering the employee a better deal that isn't being matched then why shouldn't they be able to move around. Ultimately the sharing of ideas should result in better products from all companies.

I think these anti poaching things are just a result of companies becoming large and successful.

Not really. If said company is so large and successful and they want to protect IP, then they should put the Golden handcuffs on the employee and keep them with higher salaries.

This deal with other tech companies was design to lower the wages and still keep employees trapped.
 
Wow 11 posts already and not one strong rebellion against a case that will cost Apple some money. Where's the "laws should be changed" or "I can see Intel, Adobe and Google being bad but Apple shouldn't be included in this" or "Once someone had a job at Apple why would they ever want to leave?" and so on?

By this point there should already be 2 or 3 attempts to twist the subject away from Apple being in the wrong (too) to how only those other players are evil. It seems we should have had a "99%..." or two by now AND a "...but who makes the most profitable smart phone".

;)

Well, although its a bad practice in general, what these companies tried to avoid is quite justified. The tech companies are constantly trying to robe their best employees, sometimes offering unjustified overwages and bonuses which dont quite compensate considering the skill and ability of the person recruited. Its like bidding in ebay between two persons that have no problem spending a lot of money just to win over the other bidder. At the end, one of them would pay much more than the product's real value. The two companies are trying to hurt themself to pay more for something thats not quite worth its price tag. The winner is ofcourse the recruited person, but in short term, until its company realize that it paid way more that what this person value is. In this game, the tech guy becomes a toy in the hand of the big companies...well paid in short term, but a toy.
 
I'm not saying these companies are saints or didn't collude, but there's another side to this problem.

Isn't the opposite problem an industry where employees with highly sought-after skills and insider knowledge can essentially extort and blackmail employers? Yes, I'm serious.

Extort? Really.

Having a highly valued skill is not extorting it is being paid your market value.
 
I'm not saying these companies are saints or didn't collude, but there's another side to this problem.

Isn't the opposite problem an industry where employees with highly sought-after skills and insider knowledge can essentially extort and blackmail employers? Yes, I'm serious.

Hahaha. That's funny, employees extorting and blackmailing employers? I don't think so. The employee is in demand due to the market. The reason the market is that way is because of high demand for technology everywhere in life and there aren't enough qualified people.

The reason there aren't enough people are; people aren't trained properly (ie education wasn't there), stress, and people leaving the industry. The reason it is stressful is because most software development is under funded, managers who don't understand the software development life cycle, and constantly learning. That's why people leave the industry and about 50% leave for management positions.

If there is a demand with low supply, the employee is sought after and when companies don't go after each other's but only small business software engineers then it destroys the small business as they can't afford them.

So if they went after each other's employees then they get even more quality engineers. Just because you learn something from your employer and move to another, you can't use what you've learned? Well then you should just stick to one business all your life even if you hate the place and just be unhappy. You should just deal with stress. You shouldn't use what you learned from school either because how is the college supposed to get new people to come learn from them?

This isn't extortion, it's supply and demand. The fact is that businesses don't own a person. The only way to solve the supply and demand problem is to make it less stressful. Work doesn't have to be stressful, it just is because of the demands business puts on these tech people due to the costs of paying them. They need to find a better environment for these people because their job is mentally exhausting work. To deal with workplace drama, politics and stress is too much so they leave the industry all together.

My point is, why is it extortion if they are in demand and the supply is low for another company to try and hire another employee? I guess we should only ever work for one company all our lives.
 
And since when is it legal to to prevent people from working for other companies?

I'm not a lawyer, but I know that companies can require employees to sign a non-compete agreement. That is effectively a legal way to prevent people from working for other companies. However, enforcement of those contracts varies from state to state. I'm pretty sure California courts have ruled them mostly unenforceable, which is probably why California companies have turned to "no poaching" agreements.

Again, I'm not a lawyer. When I commented on what is or what isn't poaching, I'm only talking about the definition of the word in a business context. I can't speak to under what circumstances it is a crime.
 
I'm not saying these companies are saints or didn't collude, but there's another side to this problem.

Isn't the opposite problem an industry where employees with highly sought-after skills and insider knowledge can essentially extort and blackmail employers? Yes, I'm serious.

Still, you crack me up.

"insider knowledge" can mean a lot of things. NDAs should cover the tricky stuff- though you can't always trust your board members.

The problem of highly skilled people being able to determine what they are worth! You think this needs to be stopped?
 
The two companies are trying to hurt themself to pay more for something thats not quite worth its price tag. The winner is ofcourse the recruited person, but in short term, until its company realize that it paid way more that what this person value is. In this game, the tech guy becomes a toy in the hand of the big companies...well paid in short term, but a toy.

There is a concept in economics called "mutual gain for voluntary exchange". It basically says that if you trade something to me for something to you (exchange) and nobody forced us to do it (voluntary) then we both must have believed we were gaining something from it.

In your example, you say that the companies are paying more than what the person is worth. Well, how do you determine the worth of anything? There is no universal objective measure of economic value. You can guess, but you can only really know what something is worth when you observe how much people are willing to give up for it.

Since those companies aren't being forced by anyone else to bid the employee's wages so high, we must assume each offer and counter-offer is a demonstration that the employee really is worth that much to them.
 
Well, although its a bad practice in general, what these companies tried to avoid is quite justified. The tech companies are constantly trying to robe their best employees, sometimes offering unjustified overwages and bonuses which dont quite compensate considering the skill and ability of the person recruited. Its like bidding in ebay between two persons that have no problem spending a lot of money just to win over the other bidder. At the end, one of them would pay much more than the product's real value. The two companies are trying to hurt themself to pay more for something thats not quite worth its price tag. The winner is ofcourse the recruited person, but in short term, until its company realize that it paid way more that what this person value is. In this game, the tech guy becomes a toy in the hand of the big companies...well paid in short term, but a toy.

OK. Would you rather have a system in which the employee or the employer benefits? If this was a bidding war (as you imply) just to "win over the other bidder" the one that bids the highest ends up with the talented employee and the employee "wins" by being (over) paid.

In the alternative system, the employers don't bid against each other so that the "product" is paid no more than he or she is worth (or perhaps is able to be hired for less than they are worth as there are no other bidders). The employer "wins" and the employee is paid- at most- what they are worth or (probably) less than they are worth.

Which system is better? If you are the employer or if you own a lot of stock in a company, the latter. If you are among the masses that are neither company owners nor large stockholders (otherwise knows as an "employee" in this example), the former.

In the alternative, the employer shows a little more profit. In the scenario as you see it, the employee shows a little more "profit". Does an Apple, Google or Intel need that tiny slice of additional profit? Or is that money well spent by putting a few extra dollars in the employee's pocket who is doing the work they want bad enough to bid- or potentially overbid- up their value?
 
Well, although its a bad practice in general, what these companies tried to avoid is quite justified. The tech companies are constantly trying to robe their best employees, sometimes offering unjustified overwages and bonuses which dont quite compensate considering the skill and ability of the person recruited. Its like bidding in ebay between two persons that have no problem spending a lot of money just to win over the other bidder. At the end, one of them would pay much more than the product's real value. The two companies are trying to hurt themself to pay more for something thats not quite worth its price tag. The winner is ofcourse the recruited person, but in short term, until its company realize that it paid way more that what this person value is. In this game, the tech guy becomes a toy in the hand of the big companies...well paid in short term, but a toy.
No it isn't. Actually, salaries have gone down after you adjust for inflation and cost of living when comparing Software Engineers salaries from the 1990s to now.

The average salary was about 120k for an employee who worked for the big tech companies in the 90s. Now it is roughly 180k, and adjusting for everything, their salaries are down over 15% (I believe it's higher, just can't remember the actually percentage).

So who gets to pull in bigger profits due to not having to protect their employees from being poached?

The people who make more money are the managers by getting the talent, meet deadlines and so forth. So they get these bonuses and the company pays them a small percentage more. This allows the big business to increase their profits and control salaries of their market.
 
It's interesting to see the companies that always emphasize competition to eliminate the market and intervene when it's to their favor.

Almost like the financial sector. Free market, yes, but only if it's good for us.
 
It's interesting to see the companies that always emphasize competition to eliminate the market and intervene when it's to their favor.

Almost like the financial sector. Free market, yes, but only if it's good for us.


Look up crypto monopoly. That's when companies use the legal system (through lobbyists and lawyers) to squeeze the competition.
 
Collusion between large companies is just one (illegal) trick of many they have to reduce labor costs across an industry.

Their long-term solution most likely involves ad campaigns targeting students and educational institutions to spread word of a "shortage" of qualified workers, in order to flood the market and drive wages down.

It's been done before in other sectors, tech is just new to it. :cool:

exactly, they already have already other evil plans in place, claiming shortage to bring in Indians to work as slaves for them. There is companies that will not grant you an interview if you are a citizen because that takes all the power from them.
 
"...a $415 million settlement...

<snip>

According to court documents, up to one million tech employees may have been affected by the agreements."

So everyone gets four hundred bucks. (Minus legal fees of course.)

Ka Ching indeed.

FWIW
DLM

That my friend, is an apple watch right there.
 
I bet none of the people defending Apple right now have ever worked in a technical capacity and are definitely not engineers. Engineers don't get treated like gold covered, chocolate smelling, happiness ornaments. We get treated almost like service employees.

We have to meet grueling deadlines.

We are paid salary so that there's a flexible bending on our overtime compensation.

We are subjected to draconian, almost slave-like relationships with our employers.

We are managed by people who never spent a day in any calculus or physics courses, who gets paid more than we do and sits in an office that we can see from our 45 square foot cubicle.

We have very limited room for growth.

And we are strong armed into very limiting non-compete clauses and anti-poaching agreements that basically render it impossible for us to work for a competitor if our company fires us or if we decide to quit.

Being an engineer only pays off in start-up climates.
 
That is in the US. A lot of people have those clauses over here in Europe too. The difference is that here, those clauses are not valid, or rather they are only semi-valid. If my employer wanted to enforce it, there would be a way, but then the employer would have to pay me for not working for the competitor. I work for company A, which competes with B. I get a job at B. A say I can't work for B. I say, sure, I will not work for B for a full year, during which A will pay my salary for not working... you can imagine that in practise this means that those clauses are only ever being enforced in cases such as "head of sales".... America is a fantastic place, but your legal system scares me. Just because it is in the contract it shouldn't always be valid. And the only way to get the clauses tossed is to go to court and spend everything you will ever earn in a lifetime...

How can you dare go into business when employee nr 1, 2 and 3 you hire all have to be lawyers... at least that is how it comes across from outside.

I love Apple, their products and the stocks. But if this case has merits, they should pay.

Cheers
/Peter

In California, non-compete agreements are illegal and unenforceable. An employee can not be held to any non-compete agreement he signs in California and generally, even if you sign a non-compete elsewhere, leave the job, and move to California to take a new position at a competitor, you have a pretty decent chance of winning in court. That said, such is expensive, so better to just live in California from the start.

The concerns above about trade secrets are silly. Theft of trade secrets is illegal, and can and will be prosecuted. It is actually generally quite easy to prove trade secret theft, unless the receiving company doesn't take any benefit from the theft (in which case, no harm done). But, a non-compete just because the company thinks the employee is going to violate trade secrets law when they go to work somewhere else is ludicrous with shades of Minority Report sprinkled over the top.

In any case, non-competes don't apply to a large number of the employees who are a part of the class of this suit, because they live in or would have gone to work in California.

----------

I bet none of the people defending Apple right now have ever worked in a technical capacity and are definitely not engineers. Engineers don't get treated like gold covered, chocolate smelling, happiness ornaments. We get treated almost like service employees.

We have to meet grueling deadlines.

We are paid salary so that there's a flexible bending on our overtime compensation.

We are subjected to draconian, almost slave-like relationships with our employers.

We are managed by people who never spent a day in any calculus or physics courses, who gets paid more than we do and sits in an office that we can see from our 45 square foot cubicle.

We have very limited room for growth.

And we are strong armed into very limiting non-compete clauses and anti-poaching agreements that basically render it impossible for us to work for a competitor if our company fires us or if we decide to quit.

Being an engineer only pays off in start-up climates.

Well when you say it like that ...

Seriously, though, it sounds like you need a better employer. I've been a software engineer for almost twenty years now and have successfully avoided most of the situations you say are commonplace (even when I was not in California, I worked for three different companies and only ever signed a non-compete clause once, and that time was for a very specifically-defines type of company directly competing not just with the company I was to work for but with my specific division). I get paid more than my boss. And, I've never been in a start-up climate.

So, just as a counter-point, being an engineer isn't all that bad, so long as you are at least as selective in choosing your employer as they are in selecting you.
 
"...a $415 million settlement...

<snip>

According to court documents, up to one million tech employees may have been affected by the agreements."

So everyone gets four hundred bucks. (Minus legal fees of course.)

Ka Ching indeed.

FWIW
DLM
Screw 'em. They should take the money and give it to the janitors. This is only slight less bad than when millionaire ball players cry over their salaries.
 
No it isn't. Actually, salaries have gone down after you adjust for inflation and cost of living when comparing Software Engineers salaries from the 1990s to now.

The average salary was about 120k for an employee who worked for the big tech companies in the 90s. Now it is roughly 180k, and adjusting for everything, their salaries are down over 15% (I believe it's higher, just can't remember the actually percentage).

So who gets to pull in bigger profits due to not having to protect their employees from being poached?

The people who make more money are the managers by getting the talent, meet deadlines and so forth. So they get these bonuses and the company pays them a small percentage more. This allows the big business to increase their profits and control salaries of their market.

I worked in a large well funded start-up in 1999-2002 in silicon valley, a time when salaries were a bit crazy, and even there salaries were in no way averaging at 120K in the mid 1990s. I know because before going in the valley I had discussed at length with recruiters.

Average was probably around 100-105K in 2000. Early in the 1990s it would have been substantially less than that. You could also get 15K more with bonuses, but generally didn't get more than 8K.

I know this, someone accidentlly someone released the salary of the 200+ employees (made everyone mad off course...)... The top guys got 170K (he was the CTO) plus 250K options, I got about 115K (+8K average bonus) and 50k options. The lowest salaries for technical staff were about 80K. We weren't even a dot com company yet, because they were are potential major clients we suffered their faith eventually. Still I think the IP eventually got into some still existing NAS products.
 
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I worked in a large well funded start-up in 1999-2002 in silicon valley, a time when salaries were a bit crazy, and even there salaries were in no way averaging at 120K in the mid 1990s. I know because before going in the valley I had discussed at length with recruiters.

Average was probably around 100-105K in 2000. Early in the 1990s it would have been substantially less than that. You could also get 15K more with bonuses, but generally didn't get more than 8K.

I know this, someone accidentlly someone released the salary of the 200+ employees (made everyone mad off course...)... The top guys got 170K (he was the CTO) plus 250K options, I got about 115K (+8K average bonus) and 50k options. The lowest salaries for technical staff were about 80K. We weren't even a dot com company yet, because they were are potential major clients we suffered their faith eventually. Still I think the IP eventually got into some still existing NAS products.

I'm saying the big companies, not start ups. Even if your place was extremely well funded, the big companies have way more money to play with to bring that average salaries up. They just do when they have hundreds of millions to billions. I'm not saying you guys didn't have money, obvious you did to afford 200 people.

The biggest cost to technology companies are the people. The salaries are large because of the demand and small market. Salaries are down when compared to the big companies of the past. Though there are many more big companies in the industry now.

All I'm trying to get across is that what the big companies have done has actually hurt software engineers by not poaching employees. The evidence I stated before is about big companies because the lawsuit is about big companies.

Look, if there are more big companies now since the 90s why haven't salaries kept up? That would mean since there is more companies and still a small market of software engineers, then salaries should go up because of competition for those skilled workers.

The actions of the big companies were meant to control salaries. I understand wanting that from a business prospective but entering into formal agreements is illegal.
 
Skill has nothing to do with it. Jimmy John's makes their employees sign noncompete contracts. So if you worked at Jimmy John's, you can't work at a Subway for 2 years. Food Lion and Kroger just haven't entered into an anti-poaching agreement or make their employees sign noncompete contracts.

I am sorry, but I disagree... skill has very much a lot to do with it. You guys see it all the time on the Front Page, "Apple Hires ____ to head up the ____ product." Why is that a big deal you ask? because of skill.

Look, it's not a "value" comparison I am pointing out here, it isn't. I have flipped burgers, and I have also been personally sued by a former employer for taking a job with a competitor. Burger King will never send their lawyers after an employee that went to McDonalds for a 25 cent per hour raise. Oracle WILL sue an employee that goes to work in the Microsoft ERP business division.
 
All I have is admiration for the Palm CEO, Edward Colligan, who was one of the few in Silicon Valley to stand up for employee rights. His reply to Jobs' request to join the anti-poaching club:

“[y]our proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.

“…I can’t deny people who elect to pursue their livelihood at Palm the right to do so simply because they now work for Apple, and I wouldn’t want you to do that to current Palm employees.”

Whereupon Jobs threatened to sue Palm and use Apple's wealth to beat them down. But Colligan stood his ground.

The ironic thing is that Jobs had previously poached Palm employees to work on the iPhone. Nice.

And where was Cook as COO during all this? Kept blissfully ignorant? Never noticed when someone said they couldn't find talent because they weren't allowed to call competitors? Or not to worry about raises, because no one would call Apple employees?

Steve Jobs threatened Palm’s CEO, plainly and directly, court documents reveal
 
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