Emails Reveal Battle Over Employee Poaching Between Google and Facebook 132
colinneagle (2544914) writes "Apple, Google, and a slew of other high-tech firms are currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit on allegations that they all adhered to tacit anti-poaching agreements. With that case currently ongoing, we've seen a number of interesting executive emails come to light, including emails showing that Steve Jobs threatened Palm's CEO with a full-fledged legal assault if the company kept going after Apple engineers. There is also correspondence between Sergey Brin, Marissa Mayer, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and Google's Jonathan Rosenberg discussing the threat that Google saw in Facebook hiring its engineers. The discussion elevates, with Sandberg pointing out the hypocrisy of Google growing to prominence by hiring engineers from major Silicon Valley firms. Rosenberg then hints at the potential for a 'deeper relationship' that Google would be willing to reach as long as Facebook stops hiring its engineers, going so far as to tell Sandberg to 'fix this problem.'"
Amusing? sentence before the redaction: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Finally, we (or basically I) have not done a good enough job of high rewards for high performance." - Sergey Brin
Re:Amusing? sentence before the redaction: (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why it's always ultimately best to work in government. The pay isn't high, but the work environment is ideal.
Huh? My first job as a college graduate engineer was with the DOD as a civilian. The pay is OK, but not great as you suggest. But I can tell you that the work environment is NOT ideal, even in the best of circumstances. I had great people to work for and with. They where among the best I've had in my 25-30 years so far. But, it is maddeningly frustrating to work for the government, if you care even a small amount about doing the job efficiently the right way. Maybe I'm just too frugal, but I found the wholesale waste that happened due to all the rules and laws to be frustrating to watch. Things such as spending $250K to get a $750K worth of equipment purchased, or throwing away 90% of a certain kind of part because they where so poor in quality that we had to test and select parts that met specs to repair equipment. Then we'd end up having to re-repair things because these junk parts drifted out of tolerance quickly.
If you have the right mindset, I suppose government work is fine. But if you try to care, or actually do the right thing by your customers in the most efficient way possible, it's an exercise in frustration.
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The best workers do it for love, and are treated with the best resources. The mediocre does do it for money, and are thrown money.
The problem with this specific quote is... I can't tell if you are being genuine and really mean this, or are cynically saying this to reduce how much you would have to pay employees.
I hope you can see that, from my point of view, based on this comment, there is no way for me to tell what kind of person you are. Because someone who wants to manipulate their employees would say the exact same thing.
Finally, I hardly think it's wrong to ask employers to return even a small part of their VAST fortunes to thei
Poaching is bad for employees too (Score:1)
If there was a bigger sign that said "we are not interested in training our employees and have a terrible corporate culture" poaching would be it.
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For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants.
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Those poor indentured servants, making only four times the median salary, instead of five.
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By the same logic, the H1Bs should be supremely happy, what with landing their dream jobs...or not?
Many H1Bs do land their dream jobs, and actually get paid the same as their American colleagues, you know. The entire anti-H1B story focuses on cases of abuse, which, I'll give you, are numerous, but do not represent the industry as a whole. I don't know of a single H1B person in Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple that would get less than what a local would with the same skills and experience. It's sweatshops like Tata that really abuse it, but their horror stories are the only thing you ever hear
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The difference between an H1B worker and his first cousin from the same town who has a green card is that the latter can probably go get a job with your competitor if the notion strikes him, while the H1B guy is more firmly under your control. It's reminiscent of indenture
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As an H1B worker, I am fully in agreement with you :) yes, I do not like the part of my situation where I am effectively bound to my employer, and yes, it does lead to a disparity in my ability to negotiate my wage. Thankfully they don't abuse it, so I don't need to negotiate - I get a fair market price as it is - but it still irks me. And a green card, which I have applied for, takes years to actually get due to the current multiple-year processing queues (which are growing still).
This is NOT slavery (Score:5, Informative)
For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants.
Seriously folks. Let's not for a moment pretend that this is remotely similar to actual slavery. We're talking about two companies to collude to suppress wages for employees that by all objective standards are paid pretty well and have pretty good lives. Are you seriously going to claim that that is in any way comparable to being the property of another human being?
Yes this collusion is wrong. No it isn't even close to slavery. Claiming that the two are anything similar is unbelievably clueless.
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Uhm, I didn't say it is like slavery, I said it is like the set of things that includes slavery and indentured servitude. How is it NOT like indentured servitude if your employer's competitors have all agreed with your employer that you're not allowed to work for them, that you have to stay with your current employer? How is wage suppression via collusion that involves locking employees to one employer NOT like indentured servitude?
Your attack on my statement is idiotic, you don't even address my point. You
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I didn't say it is like slavery,
You most certainly did. You said "For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants." It is nothing like a substitute for slavery and claiming so makes you look really clueless.
How is it NOT like indentured servitude if your employer's competitors have all agreed with your employer that you're not allowed to work for them, that you have to stay with your current employer?
Because Google and Facebook and Apple are not the extent of the IT universe no matter what they might want you to believe.
How is wage suppression via collusion that involves locking employees to one employer NOT like indentured servitude?
Are you really that stupid? You can't figure out the difference? Do you even know what indentured servitude is? Nobody was locked to Google. It's at will employment even if th
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How is it NOT like indentured servitude if your employer's competitors have all agreed with your employer that you're not allowed to work for them, that you have to stay with your current employer?
You mean, aside the fact that you're not working for free to pay off a previous debt?
Think of it this way - if you don't want have your income "limited" at six figures because your employer has a "gentleman's agreement" with some of their local competitors, you're always welcome to walk out that door and go apply at McDonald's.
I'd avoid bitching about how your former 6-figure job was "slavery" to your new minimum wage co-workers, in that case.
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Wait, isn't "poaching" only DIRECTLY going after people and offering them a job or at least interview?
Are people claiming that if a potential employee found a job listing themselves, they couldn't successfully get the job through the normal interview process?
Re:This is NOT slavery (Score:4, Insightful)
For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants.
Seriously folks. Let's not for a moment pretend that this is remotely similar to actual slavery. We're talking about two companies to collude to suppress wages for employees that by all objective standards are paid pretty well and have pretty good lives. Are you seriously going to claim that that is in any way comparable to being the property of another human being?
Yes this collusion is wrong. No it isn't even close to slavery. Claiming that the two are anything similar is unbelievably clueless.
Is it that far off really? Many engineers come out of school with 100k+ in debt. They go to work for one of these companies and can never leave because of secret agreements from the execs. Their wages are kept artificially low in a high cost of living area. Between rent/mortgage and other costs of living, they simply can't afford to drop the job and go elsewhere without having another job in the wings.
This isn't much different from indentured servitude. Only with indentured servants there is typically a contract up front, after X number of years you're free to move on. In Silicon Valley its all backroom deals, under the table and out of sight from the public. Your "owners" own you without you explicitly knowing it, there is no end date and there is serious direct career consequences if you try to change it.
They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.
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They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.
Can you elaborate on this please?
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They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.
Can you elaborate on this please?
My father worked for Cisco. Amazingly, every place he applied for while still there, would refuse to interview him, when only 5 years before he was one of the most sought after engineers in his field. Eventually he left Cisco and opened his own small business outside of Engineering because he simply couldn't even get interviewed anywhere. He nearly went broke trying.
I have two friends, one who worked for Google and another for Apple. Both left Engineering and went into the Accounting sector because they wer
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I have two friends, one who worked for Google and another for Apple. Both left Engineering and went into the Accounting sector because they were untouchable by anyone.The only jobs they would get interviewed for were paying half what they used to make at small shops with virtually no health benefits.
I don't buy it. I work for Google and not only am I headhunted to an almost ridiculous degree by firms large and small, I know plenty of other Google engineers who've left the company to work for others, including a couple who didn't arrange a new job before they left, choosing instead to just take a few months off. I also know a number of Apple engineers and none of them have any trouble finding other jobs, either.
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The thing that doesn't make sense here is: why would other companies not want to touch these employees? What time period was this anyway? Yeah, if this all happened during the time when this illegal collusion was going on, I can see how someone at Google wouldn't be able to get interviewed at Apple or vice versa, but there's far more companies out there than that, especially smaller and esp. medium-size companies that pay just fine.
Also, I used to work for Intel, one of the companies who colluded, and I h
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Is it that far off really?
Yes, there's a huge difference. In one scenario, if you try to leave your owner you are a fugitive of the law. In this scenario, you can always get another job. Just because a few big name companies prevented poaching doesn't mean you couldn't find work at the countless number of startups or established companies. The comparison is ridiculous and insulting to the people who experienced the atrocities of slavery.
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Is it that far off really?
Yes, there's a huge difference. In one scenario, if you try to leave your owner you are a fugitive of the law. In this scenario, you can always get another job..
Ever seen a non-compete clause in a contract? They are standard operating procedure now and companies will actively threaten you with them. So my point stands.
I don't think you have a very good grasp on what slavery is. You seem to have the Hollywood definition in your head when the reality is very different. Most slaves were indentured servants and still are. This is a temporary situation, usually remedied in time when the agreement is done. Historically in the middle east slaves were set free every 7 year
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Ever seen a non-compete clause in a contract? They are standard operating procedure now and companies will actively threaten you with them. So my point stands.
No, your point doesn't stand. They can't lock you out of the entire computer industry. At best they are against direct competition. They aren't even valid in California. You also have the freedom not to sign one. And even if you did sign one, you can still quit.
You seem to have the Hollywood definition in your head when the reality is very different. Most slaves were indentured servants and still are.
Even if I accepted that, it still isn't the case here. But even that is a stretch because the "Hollywood" version of slavery did exist. The agricultural industry of the Southern United States was based on it, and the issue resulted in a civil war.
The
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Even if I accepted that, it still isn't the case here. But even that is a stretch because the "Hollywood" version of slavery did exist. The agricultural industry of the Southern United States was based on it, and the issue resulted in a civil war.
The slavery angle is a stupid analogy by privileged and highly paid tech workers.
Now I know you're delusional. The civil war had absolutely nothing to do with slavery until Lincoln ran for re-election and realized he needed fresh blood to win the war. The slavery issue was after the war started, which was about states rights.
The agricultural industry was not based on it. Most people couldn't afford slaves and I don't mean buying them. I mean keeping them. Room and board as well as health care is expensive and unhealthy slaves are not productive. The majority weren't physically abused un
I am going to school you (Score:2)
Here are some excerpts from the Declaration of Causes of Secession. Its all about slavery.
The real question is, can you accept new factual data and change you view? That is something only a thinking person can accomplish, so I have my doubts.
Georgia:
" For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."
Mississippi: Note the sue of the term 'products'
"Our position is thoroughly identifie
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It would be WW3 if it were the government colluding to suppress earnings of investment bankers or shareholders, who by ANY measure do INCREDIBLY well. However when THEY are colluding...oh it's not slavery, they're just protecting their investments...
I'm not sure it isn't a form of slavery to be honest. They are colluding to remove employment options, earnings and general freedom from their employees. I'd call it slavery, just as I do with H1Bs who are not free to become citizens, who are not free to shop th
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Re:Poaching is bad for employees too (Score:4, Informative)
Poaching and wanting H1-B rules relaxed means I.T. workers whose knowledge is perishable in the marketplace as technology evolves are getting screwed from the tech billionaires. Been that way for decades, and if that's not enough to make you puke, young Zuckerberg and his buddies even started a PAC to lobby on their behalf.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innov... [csmonitor.com]
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It's the Republicans that want to make sure that engineers make as little money as possible.
Guess which party gets the largest donations from the tech industry.
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Whoa there AC. Your political shorts are showing. Might want to pull up your pants.
Republicans don't want you poor engineers to make money eh? And here I thought it was the Democrats that where doing that..
And don't fool yourself. The Republicans where the party of Lincon and supported the end of slavery.
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supported the end of slavery.
Bullshit. They are calling for its return.
I've never understood why people seem to accept the premise that slavery actually ended in the US. Full on hereditary chattel slavery ended, but has anyone every actually read the amendment?
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.[1]
In other words people can still be enslaved for life as punishment for a crime. There's nothing in the text that seems to prevent old style slavery of anyone you can convict of something, although their offspring are safe (until their first conviction, which is pretty likely since they would probably become wards of the
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The Democrats wants us making plenty of money. But they want a big cut before we get to take the rest home.
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The Democrats wants us making plenty of money. But they want a big cut before we get to take the rest home.
I'd only add one thing to that... Even if they don't take everything now, they eventually will. Why do I say that? Because they never say no to spending on social programs and as a wise man once said.. "The poor will always be with you.. "
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Collective Bargaining Agreements (Score:2)
Except the relationship is not symmetrical in any other ways either, e.g. the employees cannot fire the CEO and/or the board at any time for whatever reason
With a collective bargaining agreement in place the CEO often cannot fire a union employee at will either. In fact with a sufficiently restrictive CBA in place union employees can be nearly impossible to fire even for actions that arguably should get them fired, like showing up for work stoned.
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OTOH as other posters have already noticed, there are no unions in IT. So unions and symmetry are completely out of place in this discussion.
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So where is the problem?
In your inability to to distinguish between simplistic reasoning and the real world. You're free to accept the wage or not, just as you're free to become destitute. So many choices in a "free" market. Bonus points if you can tell me who has the greater bargaining power in a situation with 10 buyers and 10,000 sellers.
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let's offshore the board!
I am so suggesting that at the next shareholder's meeting...
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http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Party-of-the-rich-In-Congress-it-s-the-Democrats-5363121.php
"WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are the party of the rich, right? It's a label that has stuck for decades, and you're hearing it again as Democrats complain about GOP opposition to raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits.
But in Congress, the wealthiest among us are more likely to be represented by a Democrat than a Republican. Of the 10 richest House districts, only two have Republican co
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We're talking about uber-rich rich, the ones that have hundreds of millions in the bank - THEY are mostly Republican.
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We're talking about uber-rich rich, the ones that have hundreds of millions in the bank - THEY are mostly Republican.
Not true [huffingtonpost.com].
In fact, 8 of the 10 richest Congressional districts are long-time Democratic strongholds.
From the article:
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For some reason I've lost the previous message. These districts represent high self-made middle class - not the uber-rich people. And high middle class is indeed more Democratic-leaning, because they generally understand that government help is necessary to make poor people lives bearable and give poor children a chance.
Sounds like cognitive dissonance to me - if the "uber-rich" don't live in the 10 richest Congressional districts, where do they live? Canada?
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Why must they live in the richest Congressional districts?
Perhaps because "richest districts" in this context means "districts with the highest per-capita income."
Which has nothing to do with your opinions regarding who the "middle class" votes for, and why.
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Yes because we as a people have decided it's not in societies best interest to allow another East India trading company.
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Staffing Agencies == Business Unions (Score:1)
Apparently you've not heard of the world of contract labor. Staffing agencies, and all other equivalent forms of contingent labor are the employer's version of the union.
This is due to:
* Employer pays dues to agency for a set pool of workers
* Agency organizes workers
* Businesses gain labor-union style of protections from workers
If anything, this is a case where Right to Work should be applied, so that workers are not bound by conditions of employment to go with some form of contingent/temporary/etc. employ
Google and Apple conspired to do evil? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh the humanity.
Ultimate fanboi war!
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Getting virtually all their revenue from advertising should have been the first, last, and only clue needed.
This is why I became a leftist (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was little, my daddy told me "never attribute to malice what might as well be ignorance." And I believed this. So I was a libertarian and was suspicious of regulations on business. Let companies compete in the free market! Leave them be, government busybodies!
But then I grew up.
It is not the purpose of government to serve the people. It is the purpose of government to preserve the status quo. To keep the rich rich and the poor poor. These corporations give massive amounts of money to both political parties, and they get what they pay for. Fat government contracts. Protection from competitors, foreign and domestic. You think they give a shit about unemployment? Hell no. They LOVE unemployment. Keeps the workers in line knowing there's 5 other people who would love to take their job if they get uppity. Student loan debt forgiveness? Hells no. Debt keeps the slaves tied to their wheels. And if our barristas have Ph.Ds, all the better. Damn tech workers think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle? Haha, bring in the H1-Bs! Secret backroom deals to cap salaries! The nerve thinking Americans should earn middle class wages...in America. Working at the most profitable companies in history. We need that money to maximize shareholder value! The Dow's through the roof with massive unemployment? Perfect!
That is not ignorance. That is malice.
So, fuck 'em. Fuck 'em hard. I am a socialist.
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It is the purpose of government to preserve the status quo. To keep the rich rich and the poor poor
Actually, many of this corporations didn't exist ten years ago and none of this guys weren't shit-load-millionairs. So there, the govermente sucks at preserving the status quo.
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What about the major shareholders and board members of "this corporations [sic]"? Were they "shit-load-millionairs [sic]"? Yeah, most of them probably were. And you do remember that for example Facebook was started by rich boys who w
There Is No Spoon (Score:3)
Really, the issue is that people like to attach labels to things so they can strawman you. There really isn't such a thing as a left and a right in American mainstream politics; it is one big Corporate Party where we get the "left" and "right" labels based on which corporate industry you pander to the most. They fight with each other so much only because the industries they represent happen to often be at odds. It's not because either really subscribes to a real philosophy.
In past elections, when the countr
Re:This is why I became a leftist (Score:4, Interesting)
I wanted to break a window and throw this magazine out.
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That does not really follow. You do not need an evil mastermind pulling strings to have a system that benefits the rich. You are saying that you actually believe that there is some league of evil rich people out there, that are not just looking out for their own best interests but actively undermining the poor so that they have cheap oppressed labour? And they are not just mistakenly undetermined poor out of ignorance, but purposely infantry to do so, all the while laughing maniacally as they order their ch
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Me too.
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You are a fool. You believe in some libertarian wet dream fantasy world, where in some mythic "free market" wealthy individuals and corporations will play fair and engage in honest competition. That does not happen. What happens is monopoly, collusion, oligarchy. You think in this libertarian dog-eat-dog fantasy that you would be some free captain of industry, but you would not. You would be another slave working 60 hours a week in miserable conditions. The 40 hour week, workplace safety standards, all of t
Spank 'em hard (Score:3)
As an engineer that could have been affected by these shenanigans, I hope that each of these companies gets spanked and spanked hard. A message needs to be sent that abusing their talented, non-union labor force will have stinging consequences.
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As an engineer that could have been affected by these shenanigans, I hope that each of these companies gets spanked and spanked hard. A message needs to be sent that abusing their talented, non-union labor force will have stinging consequences.
Ha, hahahaha, you still believe those people are subject to the same rules as the rest of us. That's so quaint.
Adam Smith (Score:2, Interesting)
Adam Smith wrote eloquently about this vary topic in 1776! He wrote "Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this [natural] rate". Smith means the natural rate as determined by market supply and demand. Apparently this is precisely what occurred. Those who feel compelled to pen remarks would be well advised to read Adam Smith instead.
The final soultion. (Score:5, Funny)
Shaka, when the walls fell! Gorbachev and Regan, at Geneva. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!
Google, when the being wasn't evil. Zuckerberg, his fucks dumb. Eric Schmidt, with nothing to hide. Dathon and Picard at El Adrel.
Custer, his last stand. Murphey, his law unbroken. Snowden, his PRISM wide open.
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I just don't know what to say about this comment. The awesomeness of it is unbelievable. You just blew my mind!
There is a major difference (Score:3)
To me facebook felt too aggressive in their pursuit of Google engineers. There was a real practice among facebook recruiters to search through linkedin and any other source, where they could identify Google engineers and contact them. I saw enough evidence pointing towards those people being contacted simply because they were currently working for Google. Personally I had zero interest in switching from Google to facebook, I don't think I even bother answering, when I was approached by facebook.
If Google and facebook had reached an agreement under which facebook would be a little less aggressive in their pursuit of Google engineers, I would not have feared this would have a negative impact on my salary. And it would have felt a bit more reasonable to me. The recruiters could still look for talented employees, and if by chance they end up finding Google employees, they could still approach them just like they would have, if they had not been Google employees. As long as they weren't directly picking candidates based on them working for Google, I would call it an improvement.
Some people have argued those companies shouldn't even actively be contacting candidates. Instead they should wait for interested candidates to submit a resume on their own. Even that would not even get close to not hiring each other's employees.
Employees could still move from Google to facebook, they just had to take initiative to submit a resume. I would only consider there to be a real problem, if facebook would reject resumes submitted by candidates, just because they happened to work for Google. I have seen no evidence of such a practice existing.
Re:There is a major difference (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey Kasper,
It's Mike H, remember me? We used to work together in SRE ;) How is the startup going? I have also recently moved on from the big G.
Now. When this thing first started to bubble up, I didn't feel very concerned either. OK, so I got fewer emails from recruiters than otherwise would. No big deal, not like there was exactly a shortage of those.
However, I just want to point out one thing:
Did you read the article? It seems that the only reason such a situation did not occur is because Sandberg told Google to pound sand. During the time in question, these emails clearly show that a very senior Google executive was directly asking Facebook not to hire Google employees, even if they employees in question wanted to go work there and what's more, good corporate relations were being pegged to that demand.
I must admit, I never knew much about Rosenberg and don't have many memories of him (can't even recall what he looks like). But regardless, this paints Google in a very negative light indeed. Rosenberg was willing to threaten other companies in order to make them stop not just pursuing but actually hiring "his" people. Facebook refused, but who knows what other companies didn't? Was that really the only time he took that approach? Was this a Rosenberg-specific moment of madness/idiocy or does it run deeper? I await further discovery with great interest. Even if this was a brief failure on the behalf of just one executive, that's still completely unacceptable and Rosenberg needs to be fired, now. Employees are not assets whose freedom of employment can be traded for corporate deals and to treat them that way is completely unacceptable.
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The article didn't come across as entirely clear to me. That particular point I missed on th
Re:There is a major difference (Score:5, Interesting)
I encourage anyone with skin in the game to read the court documents, they are easy to read and really lay out the case for how anti-recruitment agreements (whereby Google agreed not to directly recruit from Apple and vice versa) directly affect overall pay scale. It is laid out clearly, concretely, and isn't just a wishful case. There are a few solid narratives which I think will put google under severe pressure at trial (eg: giving EVERY employee a 10% raise because of Facebook's aggressive recruiting).
First off, it's a FACT that Google's (and other companies) agreements are illegal. That isn't even what this case is about - the DOJ came to a settlement and Google is no longer allowed to make such agreements. This case is about wage impact and class impact. Now that the class action was certified by a judge, there is good chance that in a trial a connection between the illegal activities the companies in question were conducting and class-impact and wages were affected.
Since you used to work at Google, presumably you're a smart person, I hope you can see how your own personal feelings about how recruiters from other companies should or should not behave have little bearing on the actual illegal activities that Google was undertaking.
Now, as a Google employee, you certainly know about the pay bands, right? That your pay is not at the sole discretion of your hiring manager or your manager, but set in a company wide policy that employees of job title X get paid between $A - $B with GSU/RSU/option grants in a specific range as well. There are pay bands for every single title in the company (except maybe executives). Google (and Intel, and many companies) make it a high priority to keep internal equity between employees at given titles (eg: SRE II), so if too many employees were being recruited away and retained they would have to adjust pay, either by giving promotions or adjusting pay bands.
As we know, Google had to elect to do the latter. In response to Facebook recruiting, Google gave across the board 10% raises, and specific raises to SRE titles as well. This is all laid out in court discovery, and is a fact, even Google's lawyers dont deny that.
The class filing has a lot of discovery, a strong narrative, and statistical modeling to demonstrate there was "class wide impact" (aka YOU were affected by your coworkers inability to discover their true worth via getting unsolicited job offers).
Now, finally, you said "some people have argued... shouldn't even be actively be contacting candidates." The question is ... why is this justified? Where's the legal basis for such a strict restriction? Also how does it affect overall market dynamics? Maybe if there was an country-wide law for this, but what purpose would it serve? In a market based economy wages are set by companies bidding for employees. Since a lot of people in this field have jobs nearly all the time, the only way to find out they are unpaid is to be offered a job with a higher pay. There are only 2 ways for this to happen, one is for the employee to seek, the other is for companies to reach out. Why restrict companies?
I think a lot of your arguments are around the notion of definitions of "aggressive", polite or decorum. Legally speaking there isnt any distinction here, and I am not sure the common good is benefited by restricting the function of the market of jobs and employees.
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I don't know if it is justified. But enough people have taken that position, that we need to at least acknowledge, that there is a group of people with that opinion.
It is not hard to understand why some people have that opinion. Nobody want to see their own inbox filled up with offers from loads of companies they'd never want to work for. But of course a few u
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The top managers at a lot of these companies think this way, because they would rather not have to compete to retain employees, but there is no coherent reason anyone else would take this view other than simple brown-nosing the boss.
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If you're being annoyed by Facebook recruiters, it's fairly easy to tell them to GTFO. It's something between you and Facebook, not between Google and Facebook, so there's no reason why Google should intercede on your behalf and negotiate a blanket restriction - especially when that other guy who's in the office next door to you might actually appreciate those offers.
Amazon seems to be similarly active at trying to recruit people from MS. I don't find it any difficult to tell them that I'm not interested in
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There was a real practice among facebook recruiters to search through linkedin and any other source, where they could identify Google engineers and contact them. I saw enough evidence pointing towards those people being contacted simply because they were currently working for Google. Personally I had zero interest in switching from Google to facebook, I don't think I even bother answering, when I was approached by facebook..
For what other purpose would you put your employer in your linkedin profile?
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I agree with your premise, I think. These agreements are about companies agreeing not to send recruiters INTO THE OFFICES of other companies... that's just crappy business. In fact, at the peak of these booms, companies get into departmental "retaliation" where one person leaves then gets back at their former boss by hiring away co-workers and causing projects to be delayed. That's what was going on at the time and these companies wanted it stopped.
I think that companies were just agreeing to stop accepti
interesting (Score:1)
Awww. Isn't this cute? (Score:2)
Google and Facebook with their little pissing matches?
Come to work in the government contracting world. Where the players decide who will win which contracts and which employees each will need. And if you don't play ball, you might have a career as a barista at Starbucks. But they'll make any other companies life hell if they try and hire key people away.
It's like choosing a winner between (Score:1)
This is Funny (Score:1)
Given the quality of life that Facebook and Google create, this battle over available talent is funny indeed. Both companies should be flushed down the toilet for degrading their customers and the quality of computer science applications, that they give computing a big black eye. I laugh at both of them and wish that they and all the engineers they employ would just go away. And I know something about this having followed python as an important application language at Google and experienced the failings of