Twitter Accuses Meta of Poaching Employees to Build Threads

[Dwalls90]

Regardless, it is a tad suspicious that those workers are used to duplicate the product of their former employer.

No it’s not. Big companies hire experts in an arena they want to compete in from competitors all the time. Absent a non-compete, it’s just business and is fully legal.

 

[PlainBelliedSneetch]

You can't point a finger at poaching when you laid off thousands

Not to mention that poaching is legal.

 

[HiVolt]

Is it poaching if you were fired by a megalomaniac via Tweet?

only to be hired by another megalomaniac? LOL.

 

[PlainBelliedSneetch]

Well, that is rich, isn't it? Wasn't there a recent ruling that eliminated non-compete clauses? In other words, employees from competing companies can be employed by those competing companies.

Attorney General Bonta Reminds Employers and Workers That Noncompete Agreements Are Not Enforceable Under California Law

Noncompete agreements are widespread, affecting an estimated 20-25% of the nation’s labor force OAKLAND – California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued an alert reminding employers and workers that noncompete agreements are not enforceable in California. Noncompete agreements generally...

oag.ca.gov

 

[Applefan4]

Oh yes they're poaching the employees you wrongfully terminated Elon.

You only have yourself to blame for all of this.

‘Wrongfully terminated’ Lol. Getting rid of those triggered, self entitled children was a great move by Elon. They can push their ideologies on other platforms.

 

[Jumpthesnark]

"Trade secrets" like firing your communications staff and replacing them with an auto-reply poop emoji? You can keep those brilliant ideas, Elon.

 

[porkrind]

Regardless, it is a tad suspicious that those workers are used to duplicate the product of their former employer.

Nah, remember that Meta was on a hiring freeze and laying off a **** ton of people when Twitter did. And on top of that, Zuck and his people say there aren't any ex-Twitter people on that team.

Following Twitter’s accusations, Meta’s communications director Andy Stone said that no one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee. “That’s just not a thing,” he wrote.

 

[gund1234]

good for employees.

 

[danakin]

Elon… jcka$$ gonna jacka$$

 

[gund1234]

“but hiring people actively looking for a job is typically considered poaching.”

Wut?

they don't like competition, they want to pay low wages.

 

[majkom]

this is gonna be so much fun

 

[gund1234]

Hilarious.

1. if you fire somebody and a competitor hires them, that is not poaching. Poaching is hiring active employees by offering them more money — usually when there is some sort of relationship in place between the two companies involved. Example: company A does consulting services for company B to build them a custom app and company B hires one or more developers from company A just as the contract is winding up.

2. What intellectual property? Every forum on every website that allows comments is using essentially the same functionality to store posts and responses. Did Twitter patent the character limit?

Poaching is not wrong or illegal either, businesses hate it because they have to raise wages.

 

[Sedulous]

No it’s not. Big companies hire experts in an arena they want to compete in from competitors all the time. Absent a non-compete, it’s just business and is fully legal.

To make the same product? Former Twitter programmers/engineers could have gone on to make anything but they were hired to make a clone of Twitter. I still think that looks bad. If they reused code, it might even be illegal.

 

[gund1234]

That's not exactly true--any junior programmer could single handedly write a Twitter clone with a bad backend that doesn't scale.

Conceptually the structure of Twitter is easy, but like anything of the sort there's a lot going on that isn't obvious or even visible to the user. And more to the point, even if it really was that simple, building a platform that can support hundreds of millions of user interactions per day requires a lot of people with an uncommon skillset and a huge amount of experience using it.

You're right that those things aren't trade secrets, though--they're what you get from years of working at a company doing those tasks and honing that skillset.

It's like building a modern car--it's conceptually simple, but there's a lot of moving parts there and a lot of backend that make it happen efficiently, so actually executing the process isn't anywhere near as easy as it seems. Also like designing a car though, anybody can take the thing apart down to the last bolt, so there's no magical trade secrets involved in the process, it's just that actually executing it well is something that requires a lot of talent and experience that you mostly gain by doing.

putting all the required technologies together is not easy.
companies are not inventing new technologies.

 

[mrgraff]

Twitter has not gone after other Twitter-like social networks that include Bluesky and Mastodon, but Threads is a newly-launched app that is built off of Instagram, giving it a notable user base from its debut. Mastodon and Bluesky have far fewer users. In February, for example, Mastodon had 1.4 million active users, while Bluesky had 50,000 users at the end of April.

So it's just about one billionaire jealous of another one? 🤔 I can't help but notice that Twitter isn't going after Truth Social either.

 

[Sedulous]

Nah, remember that Meta was on a hiring freeze and laying off a **** ton of people when Twitter did. And on top of that, Zuck and his people say there aren't any ex-Twitter people on that team.

I hope that is the case but why would anyone trust Facebook?

 

[macsplusmacs]

Self awareness ain't their strong suit:

 

[mannyvel]

Twitter isn't really rocket science. It's been copied many times.

That said, Twitter fired so many people that "poaching" would be hard to show.

 

[macsplusmacs]

So it's just about one billionaire jealous of another one? 🤔 I can't help but notice that Twitter isn't going after Truth Social either.

Why would they go after them? They are doing a great job sinking their ship. Their SPAC is failing, and they are running out of money.

The only way they have survived this far is due to emergency cash infusions.

 

[return2sendai]

"hiring people actively looking for a job is typically considered poaching"

I don't think that is right (or isn't phrased right).

“I don’t think that …. isn’t phrased right” is a double negative. So unless you meant to say that you do think it is phrased right, your phrasing is incorrect.

 

[pdaholic]

Okay boys, sounds like the only way we are going to settle this dispute is with a good old-fashioned boxing match.

…to the death.

 

[Lioness~]

Who will win?
What will the cost be?

 

[spazzcat]

Regardless, it is a tad suspicious that those workers are used to duplicate the product of their former employer.

There are several Twitter clones already and I am sure there are more in the works.

 

[Ch3ckM4te]

Neither of them have anything to worry about. Zuck is used to his new ideas bombing, and Elon will be fine whether Twitter collapses or not.

 

[macsplusmacs]

Indeed. But you got to admire a guy that does not pay rent on his offices and then turns around and charges rent to them: