US busts Google, Apple, Intel over secret employee poaching pact | Hacker News Reader

US busts Google, Apple, Intel over secret employee poaching pact

arstechnica.com

69 pointshariis21 comments

I tend to lean more conservative but I have to say that the government cracking down on this seems like a good thing. I have a hard time seeing how companies creating agreements to help reduce competition for employees is a net good.

However I don't have a great understanding of all the issues at play here, so I may be wrong. Anyone have any experience as to why this is good/bad?

I have a hard time seeing how companies creating agreements to help reduce competition for employees is a net good.

If you're an employee who has invested money and many years building up skills and education to become valuable to companies you might have a different view.

It's a coincidence this article comes on the heels of AngelGate, where it was Angels seeking to form anti-competitive agreements for their own benefit -- and less benefit for entrepreneurs.

I parsed your response five times, and I think you've got it backwards. The OP was stating that he thinks this is negative for employees.

You're right, the OP and I have the same position. I read the comment quickly and focused on the "Anyone have any experience as to why this is good/bad?"

Honestly this seems like a cash grab from the federal government more then anything.

Knowing friends who worked at these companies, they never felt the anti competitive pressure, and several moved between the companies several times.

Most likely, the government found some clauses buried in some contracts that said in a foot note that the companies would agree not to cold call employees in their own respective companies. I don't even think it's unreasonable to have a contract along those lines if engineers are working directly with each other.

Although on the flip side, I think it might be valuable to send a message that anti-competitive agreements in general won't be tolerated and it's good to know that there are people watching this sort of thing.

I have yet to see any article actually say that there was any monetary part to the settlement. It basically just said "We promise not to do it again for 5 years".

I don't see anything wrong with these alleged agreements, per se, but it sets a terrible anti competitive precedent that is all manner of bad for employee marketability. It would be difficult to sus out the truth of what these types of agreements actually do behind the closed doors of these company's HR departments.

Do you believe in the free market? If so, you really don't see anything wrong with companies conspiring together to constrict that market for employees?

I'm not sure you understood my comment.

Agreed. This decision is a good thing.

I have first hand experience with the anti-poaching policy, since I work for a different company that employs the same practice.

When I was searching for a job within town I was told by recruiting firms and other companies that they could not and would not talk to me, because of the agreements they have with my employer.

It makes searching for a job extremely difficult as one might suspect. It is effectively a job monopoly, since wages become fixed due to the lack of competition for jobs.

For the longer term, I would like to see a federal law enacted against the anti-poaching employment practice.

Why Federal Law? Wouldn't it make sense to try it at the local level and see it's effects before pushing it to the national?

The local level is a good place to start; however, I believe the problem is more rampant. Google, Apple, and Pixar are mostly California companies. Google and Apple do have offices here in Texas where I work, and their policies were in affect here too. So the problem crosses state boundaries, which would need a Federal fix.

Federal law is needed for something that crosses state boundaries. This kind of collusion between big players is likely to cross state boundaries.

Let's put it the other way: why do you think what works on a smaller scale (local companies) will necessarily tell us how it will work on a national scale (large national companies)?

This has long been recognized as a problem:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter X, Part II

And therefore it's long been a part of US Federal anti-trust law and case law. Modern Republican administrations in particular have tended to focus their attention on these type of price fixing cases.

The problem with regulation is that most regulation (and taxation as well) tends to create advantages for bigger corporations. Given that, it's important that if you do have any significant degree of regulation you also need a corresponding amount of regulations that check the power of big corporations. This is a perfect example of just why that's necessary.

A lot of our client contracts include mutual "no poaching" clauses. Obviously we are a lot smaller, but what determines when this is OK and when it's not?

You and your clients are presumably not peers. While it might make sense for some of your employees to jump to or from them, it's not nearly the same as jumping to a competitor of yours.

Of course, if you aren't in California you can lock them down with a non-compete, but then again that's why (I think) Silicon Valley has been so consistently and overwhelmingly successful (it's the one absolutely unique advantage it has).

This is something I've been harping on about lately but no-one seems to listen. Silicon Valley is the only place I know of where it is illegal for a company to restrict the work you do after hours and without company resources. This is such a massive boon for people trying to create their own startup. It means you can work on a project on the side until you are ready to commit without having to worry about your current employer stealing your IP.

No one listens because it only directly helps competitors, and of course startups by definition are not entrenched businesses.

Few are wise enough to realize the advantages of an overall healthy ecosystem, and the giants like Intel, once they became giant, only want that to a limited extent anyway.

Actually, they sometimes are. We solve hard consulting problems for competitors quite frequently. And those are then the cases with most need for an agreement like this...

(By the by, I'm a fan of the laws allowing people to build their own stuff in their spare time without using company resources).

Govt cannot monitor day-to-day illegal & immoral activities of big corporations. It is better to breakup these corporations into smaller entities to promote competition and solve unemployment crisis.

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