Do you realize that there was a class-action lawsuit where the "competitors" Google, Apple, Adobe etc were working together to not poach each other's employees? You're acting like I'm a conspiracy nutjob when there were emails from Eric Schmidt and Steve Jobs where they admitted they were illegally colluding.

Do you realize that many "competing" startups have the same VC firms investing in them who don't want bidding wars between their engineers?

They want new talent but they don't want their current talent bouncing around for more money.