Meta Poaches Two More Apple AI Executives | Hacker News Reader

Meta Poaches Two More Apple AI Executives

macrumors.com

23 pointsalwillis24 comments

Poaching is a strange verb to use. It implies that Apple has some intrinsic right to their labor and that meta has done something unethical by making them a better offer.

That's simply not how employment works.

True but I think they're coming out of from a different orientation. Namely that presumably working on AI as an executive at Apple should be one of the dream jobs.

So the deeper point is that things are problematic enough at Apple that an executive in a dream job would consider leaving and not just leave but go to a company that's brand is fairly toxic but nevertheless is so aggressively investing in AI to pull off all kinds of brand washing

How is working on AI at Apple more of the dream job than working on AI at Meta? If Meta offers say 10, 20 or 30% more, why wouldn't anyone move?

After a certain point, more money isn't a motivator to everyone.

According to reports, Meta is offering compensation that literally amounts to generational wealth. If you know you and none of your children and grandchildren will ever have to worry about money anymore, would you care which mindless tech tycoon you work for?

I mean, trading functional democracy for money is a interesting gamble.

It's not like that would be a surprising thing to happen in the US.

I think they are also offering compute time to actually do the things they want to do. The money is nice, but not fighting or having gpu's being pulled from you can also mean alot.

Apple has a cool HQ, great physical products. Makes own chips.

Money aside, Apple is way cooler.

Apple fan boys will need their own senior care facilities.

It's a standard term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_poaching

The term poaching is common, but is a word that overemphasized the importance of the hirer.

There are 3 parties involved. The worker choosing to accept a better offer. The hiring company making a better offer. The previous employer offering unsatisfactory terms.

The term "poaching" suggests that the departing employee is being "stolen" or "taken" from their current employer, implying a sense of ownership over that individual. Employees are not property; they are individuals with the right to seek better opportunities and make their own career choices.

Another standard term is Recruited.

It is poaching. They made an agreement with Apple to work for Apple, and Meta did disrespect that by poaching them. Thats exactly how employment works.

You're denying fundamental human demands for fairness and equity. Of course it's poaching

You can't have it both-ways. Either employment is at-will or it's not.

An implication that companies don't have a right to make a better offer to anyone (or that employees don't have the right to leave on a dime) is an implication that illegal marketplace collusion is going on.

> They made an agreement with Apple to work for Apple, and Meta did disrespect that by poaching them

Might be the biggest bootlick statement I've ever seen on this forum.

Companies have 0 right to "claim" you. They'd fire you with no second thought.

I could agree to this argument if they broke their employment contract's clause about notice period, but there is no evidence from TFA that that is the case (and I'd assume Apple would use whatever legal means they have to enforce a contract in such a case).

>You're denying fundamental human demands for fairness and equity. Of course it's poaching

I disagree. Apple could fire these people at will. Fairness is that they can quit and move to a better offer by a competitor at will.

I used to know corporate recruiter that really made it feel like the appropriate term. He used all sorts of social engineering to trick employees of companies to flesh out internal org charts by convincingly pretending to be people they should confide in. It was like Mr. Robot, but without the computers. And he was given marching orders like, find this department in this company, figure out who the good people are, and what makes them tick and bring them all. It could take months. It was underhanded, and very impressive. This was before linkedin probably made it so much easier.

I remember the good old days when Google did this to Microsoft and Ballmer would be in the headlines for yeeting office chairs weekly. Not sure how well that played out for Google.

Sounds like a couple of guys following their "guy" to his new pastures. A personal loyalty thing ("plus we'll all get rich while we do it").

As a outside skeptical observer, i just dont think executives are as valuable as individual contributors.

Certainly when there are exceptions they do drive innovation, so the myth making i observe is more like magic the gathering and opening up packs to find rare cards and trying to follow the current meta strategies and beat them.

Unfortunately, LLMs are really good at the same bullshit Steve Jobs was, and just as failable when taken confidently out of context and non appropiately assessed.

Source article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-17/meta-hire...

Here's an alternate headline: Valuable AI workers improve compensation by leaving Apple

That’s disingenuous; it’s not just Apple.

Neither Amazon or Google are going to pay $200 million dollar salaries, never mind Apple.

I suspect these companies will figure out how to respond to these types of offers without blowing up their entire org charts.

Yes. I should've left Apple out of the headline. I was more trying to emphasize the role of the people in this in making a choice instead of being passive property traded by their owners.

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