Steve Jobs allegedly threatened Palm with patent suit to force anti-poaching agreement - Page 2

...unless you were one of those employees denied a chance to move to a more challenging or better paying job at one of the "non-poaching" companies. You seem to feel it's really not any issue worthy of further investigation, or that it's OK as long as a couple million will take care of it? Any of these companies would hardly notice a few million settlement.

 

Considering your feelings on intellectual issues I'm surprised you don't have a stronger objection to these kinds of practices intended to enrich employers at the expense of an employees freedom to work where they wish and/or improve their condition.

Edited by Gatorguy - 1/23/13 at 7:27am

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Edited by MacRulez - Yesterday at 12:33 pm

The most interesting thing about this to me is that despite Coligan's statements above, the actual email that Jobs sent, doesn't specifically say anything of the kind.  

 

One could easily read between the lines that this is what he means, and I have no real doubt that this is exactly what Jobs was getting at, but everyone is reporting this as an email "threat" from Jobs of a very specific nature and it simply isn't true.   

 

By the letter of the law, Steve Jobs did not actually threaten to have a patent war with Palm if they failed to stop poaching employees (at least not in that email).  Yet it's being recorded as fact all over the web this morning.   

 

Email, in particular domes down to exactly what was said only.  If he said the exact same thing in person, then someone could say that they detected a threat or felt like it was a threat because there would be tone of voice, body language etc. and it would have some traction.  If someone sends you an email that isn't a threat and you read a threat into it, the person sending the email is not responsible. 

Funny how you always manage to misinterpret everything I say.

Where did I say it was OK? Where did I say it wasn't worth investigating? In fact, I specifically said that it was wrong and then explained why.

What I said is that FROM THE COMPANY'S PERSPECTIVE, it's not going to have a huge impact. It's not like the other IP suits that could affect entire generations of products and affect billions of dollars. Someone said it was going to cause Apple endless problems and it's not. They'll settle it for a modest amount of money, stop doing it, and move on.

I doubt if it will be hard to prove (if it's true, that is). With five companies involved, it is likely that one would admit the agreement in exchange for no prosecution. That would provide the state (and any civil litigants) with the ammunition they need.

However, as I've stated above, I agree that it will be a modest settlement, an agreement not to do it again, and probably not even an admission of guilt (I love the way that works out "We're not guilty of doing it, but we'll agree not to do it any more").

Somehow I missed that the investigation and suit were over and they were found guilty. Thanks for the update

 

Nothing personal, but I see this angle as total BS.  We aren't talking about factory workers being forced to work for pennies on the dollar, nor are we even talking about skilled workers who float around the economy and have their wages rise and fall based on job availability or any of that stuff.  

 

We are talking about a small group of super-skilled, extremely highly paid, mostly already wealthy in their own right, upper-class, University educated creatives.  All that stuff about worker rights and the poor worker simply doesn't apply here.  Besides which, the *actual* working class people, and the middle class, and the vast majority of the world gets screwed over by this kind of thing (or worse) all the time and no one stands up for them.  

 

The only reason this case is even moving forward is because of it's high profile.  It's going to make some lawyers look extremely good for a short amount of time.  Some of them will no doubt run for office later on.      

 

To bring up labour law in this situation is technically valid because the law is the law.  However, to imply that this is some kind of "workers rights" issue with shades of union involvement and that the government should step in and "do something about it" for the good of the economy and the world etc., is specious bull IMO.  

 

I believe in the law and this is illegal so it should be prosecuted, but on balance, what they did here is not only a very common practice, it's probably actually the best practice both for the companies and the employees concerned.

 

Without such agreements, your products would generally arrive later, take longer to design and be less distinctive.  Patent lawsuits would also double in number and frequency and the whole industry would step up a notch, in terms of animosity and lack of inter company cooperation.  

Is that like the documents showing that Apple colluded with all the major publishers and several mid level ones to set ebook prices.

And yet in both instances no one has actually shown these documents, shown Apple or Jobs exact words in the matter to the degree claimed. Yes there was one email to one publisher, but what about the other 15 or so supposedly in the mix. Or even the other 4-5 majors. And where is the wording that says 'we'll band together with the other publishers to set prices.' There's these emails pointing out the use of patented items and how Palm may have actively recruited Apple staff based on information from a previous employee who had just left the company. But where is the alleged 'if you don't agree to this poaching agreement we are going to sue your ass into oblivion over every patent we control'

No where thus far on both.

The initial contact and purported threat of patent lawsuits if they didn't agree with Apple came in a phone call according to the affidavit, avoiding an easy paper trail. It's pretty clear from the e-mail sent by Palm's CEO in response that he wanted to make absolutely certain that the discussion became memorialized, and further contact to be made via written emails. Steve Jobs in his followup to Palm's email essentially acknowledged making the threat of IP infringement lawsuits if Palm refused to agree with Apple's demand for a non-poaching agreement between the two. Do you read it differently?

 

Pages 4-8 of the linked doc.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/121737673/Colligan-Affidavit

From Apple's perspective, Jon Rubinstein and Fred Anderson were giving Palm inside information on what employees to go after at Apple. Had Rubinstein and Anderson not been former Apple employees, it would have been hard for Palm to know what employees to go after. That seems wrong in itself.

 

I see where you're going on this but I'm not really pushing the "workers rights" angle (as it might be viewed from a union perspective, for example), or any any comparison to factory workers, I entirely agree it's a different arena.  

 

But I do maintain that these employees are really only able to realize near full value (loosely defined) for their services provided that they can be recruited (or passively hired) by companies that would similarly value their services.  

 

I try to look at this from my current perspective (not that anyone is beating down my door to recruit me away...).  But if my boss struck a no-poach deal with other companies that would potentially get value out of me, how much leverage do I have when I talk compensation with him?  I can't walk up to him with an offer letter from a competitor and say "let's talk."  

According to GlassDoor surveys Apple underpaid their engineers compared to some other tech companies (and still do). I suspect this non-poaching issue had as much to do with Apple trying to control their payroll costs at that time by avoiding competition for their engineers based on salaries as much as intellectual issues.

 

"It is believed that, sooner or later, Apple's underpaid engineers are going to scram, occupying spots at the company's rivals. While cutting pay might have been excusable when Apple was going through rough times, now is clearly not the case for this anymore, the same report mentions.

Edited by Gatorguy - 1/23/13 at 8:11am

 

 

I don't disagree with what you say, however, what this story suggests is that was not what was happening. Apple's employees weren't deciding to go out in the world and see what they were worth. They weren't marketing themselves. They took no action themselves to find another job. Instead, two former disgruntled Apple executives, namely Jon Rubinstein and Fred Anderson, were using inside information to specifically target individual Apple employees. So, Apple was trying to stop Palm from using inside information to target Apple's employees. As such, I agree with Apple on this one to the extent such an agreement was limited to actively seeking out each other's employees. Now had Apple's employees been actively seeking other work, and Apple was trying to get in the way of that, I'd agree with this lawsuit. 

 

 

It depends on the nature of the anti-poaching agreement. If the agreement prohibits all hiring of each other employees, then I agree with you. However, if the agreement only covers another company actively pursuing another's employees, I disagree with you. Palm had a huge advantage over other technology companies when it came to knowing who did what within Apple. That advantage was paid for by Apple when it employed it's former executives that left for Palm. Why should those executives be allowed to use that inside information to try and actively pursue Apple's employees?

Because that's not normally considered to be proprietary information within the bounds of NDA agreements. If Apple feels that it IS proprietary information covered by the NDA, then they had every right to sue for violation of the NDA. No need to use a non-poaching agreement which is overly broad and overly restrictive of the employees' rights.

The interesting part is that despite the allegations, Jobs is no longer here to answer for it. 

 

That complicates things. And now, all sorts of claims and inferences can be made.

The agreement was never not to hire, but not to actively attempt to recruit away folks currently working at, and likely under a contract, with a competing company.

Keep in mind that some states do consider non compet clauses valid so these companies would be potentially putting their new hire in a world of hurt.

But if the employee wants to take that chance on his/her own, whatever

 

 

Yes. Any major tech company with anything of value in the market (Apple especially) *will* try to control the movement of human capital. It would *appear* that Jobs tried to do this privately with Colligan in a hush-hush manner, though I imagine Jobs knew the legal ground he was on. He wasn't stupid. 

 

Further, I won't for a second disagree that Jobs was very Machiavellian, or that he could play dirt like the rest of him. It was thanks in part to that, and other qualities he possessed, that Apple was able to revolutionize entire markets almost overnight, and drive innovation in this industry for the better part of a decade. Quite honestly, when I look at what the iPhone and iPad and Apple at large have done to the industry and what they have come to mean for consumers, I can't stay angry for very long. 

 

Steve Jobs isn't even here to answer for any of this, never mind grading Apple on a slight curve because of what's behind their product and market philosophy. I'd sooner give Apple a pass than, say, Samsung. 

The man has been dead for over a year and what do we get? Lawsuit news. >_>

Companies run by sociopaths often behave like that. It seems to be a side-effect of ASPD which is medically recognized as a disease of the mind.
 

An interesting aspect is that sociopaths frequently are regarded as "saviours" "genius" or something similar and have a cult status that itself borders on fanaticism.

 

Sound familiar ?

 

Please explain where Steve Jobs exhibited extreme antisocial behavior and a lack of conscience.

 

 

The problem I have though is people aren't making a distinction between preventing an employee from on the employee's own volition going out an looking for a new job, and preventing a major competitor with inside information from actively targeting specific employees. Jobs appeared to be concerned about the later, which I am  unsure is even illegal. If it is, I am unsure why it should be. If it were, Apple through paying executives like Rubinstein would be essentially bank rolling the specific targeting of its employees. This seems anti-competitive. By hiring former Apple executives, Palm had an unfair advantage over both Apple and other competitors at knowing what Apple employees were valuable. 

 

 

But we don't have the details on the alleged agreement. Jobs clearly is concerned only with the active targeting of Apple employees by former Apple executives. If that is the scope of the agreement, I do not see that as over broad. Moreover, I don't see how it significantly hurts employees if they still can go out an actively look for new employment on their own volition. Letting companies with inside information freely go after a competitor's employees is disruptive of the competitor's business and causes harm to consumers through slower product releases, increased IP battles, and higher purchase costs. 

 

I also don't think such agreements eliminating active targeting should be illegal provided they were negotiated one on one as opposed to on an industry basis and they in no way prevent a competitor hiring another's employees who come to it on their own. 

 

I was just talking about the email alone.  It's being touted around the web this morning as "Steve Jobs threatens ..." and most sites aren't even putting an "allegedly" in front of it.  

 

Technically it doesn't threaten, and it doesn't imply that Jobs would start a patent war if he doesn't get an agreement.  I understand what happened and what Coligan said and I don't necessarily disagree, it's just that this email does not say what everyone is saying it does.  One can certainly read a veiled threat into it if one wants to, but that's not what it actually says.  That was my point.  The email by itself is not a smoking gun.  It's actually vague.  

 

Something else I don't think people are considering is that if I was the lawyer for Apple, I would argue that it's pretty obvious that without poaching agreements, each company would have to actively defend it's IP a lot more through the use of patents.  If would behoove all parties in the absence of those kind of agreements, to patent every single thing they could so that a person could not take secrets to another company.  

 

I would therefore argue that Steve's mention of patents, could be viewed not as a threat, but as a simple statement of what's going to happen if they don't have the agreement.  A statement of fact as opposed to a threat of action.  

 

I'm not sure either way, but my answer to this is that "underpaid" is just calculated relative to what everyone else is getting, it's not an absolute measure.  A lot of Wall street types with multiple millions in bonuses a year argue that they are "underpaid."  It's close to a meaningless term IMO.  What is really meant here is just that "other people doing similar jobs get more."

 

For it to really mean something objective, we would have to be living in a Socialist economy where *all* jobs are compared and a fair (to everyone) pay scale is worked out by the central authority and nailed down.  Otherwise who can say whether a janitor is worth more than a lunch lady or a businessman is worth more than a scientist?  

 

I'm actually in favour of such a scheme but it isn't likely to happen for a least another century IMO.  

 Abandoning his daughter and her mother?  Ripping off Steve Wozniak when they were working on the Atari game together?  I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, these are merely 2 well known ones...  

 

Let's face it, they guy was a jerk, and not someone to be emulated.

 

Let's face it: you're cherry-picking and not providing evidence for the "sociopath" diagnosis.

Well, TS, since you asked. To help enhance your reading skills (comprehension skills is a more difficult challenge, but we start with small steps :-) ) I did not actually mention Steve Jobs. I simply invited the reader to consider.

 

But that aside. I will assume that you know what the definition of a sociopath is and not repeat the key diagnostic elements here. Go look it up yourself.

 

1. Callous disregard for the rights and feelings of other people: SJ was renowned for humiliating his staff in front of other people if he wasn't happy.

2. Impulsive tantrums: I assume you have read the biography.

3. Inability to admit mistakes/apologize: "You're not holding it right"

4. Believing your own lies: "we steal great ideas" / "I just want them to stop stealing our ideas"

5. MikeB provided a couple of others.

6. Winning at any cost: Crap Maps.

 

So that's a fair shopping list of sociopathic behaviours. If I had a manager who displays such behavioural characteristics I'd seriously suggest that he seek psychiatric help. But of course YOU may think that's admirable in a person.

 

Oh and before I forget: You still haven't apopogized to me for lying about my email address being a fake, and my having been banned from AI and returning under another name. I think that clear lack of personal integrity is, .... sad.

1. A specific example, maybe? There's humiliating and then there's reprimanding for a bad job. 

2. I assume you understand what cherry-picking is?

3. That's funny, pretending Antennagate was real.

4. And there goes your argument.

5. You'll notice he raised Lisa and paid back Woz, but that wouldn't fit your interpretation of a person you hate.

6. Enjoy your anti-Apple bent.

Well let's see how many of the sociopath checklist applied to SJ. http://www.naturalnews.com/036112_sociopaths_cults_influence.html

 

#1) Sociopaths are charming - Check

 

#2) Sociopaths are more spontaneous and intense than other people - Check

 

#3) Sociopaths are incapable of feeling shame, guilt or remorse - I don't know about this one

 

#4) Sociopaths invent outrageous lies about their experiences. - Don't know about this one either

 

#5) Sociopaths seek to dominate others and "win" at all costs - Based on this story and SJ threatening companies that don't do what he says, this one is true

 

#6) Sociopaths tend to be highly intelligent - Check

 

#7) Sociopaths are incapable of love - Don't know

 

#8) Sociopaths speak poetically - Check, SJ was definitely a master wordsmith. His interview was amazing to watch and he had great metaphors and thought process.

 

#9) Sociopaths never apologize - Check

 

#10) Sociopaths are delusional and literally believe that what they say becomes truth - Check, although a lot of what he said did become true.

 

I think SJ being a sociopath isn't a far out idea. Most large corporate CEO's can be put in that category as their job is perfect fit for the behavior.

 

3 being false counts it out, then.

7 is also false.

9 is also false.

 

Either this checklist is an all or nothing, or everyone is a sociopath because they'll fall under at least one of them. 

Well, you obviously didn't read up on sociopaths TS. The APA (American psychiatric society) regards 3 of the 6/7 characteristics as being diagnostic.

 

I repeat, for the intellectually challenged ;-), I did NOT say SJ was sociopathic. I did point out that companies run by a sociopath tend to do what apple was doing (blackmailing Palm to force them to enter into an illegal secret agreement.)

 

And no, I don't hate dead steve jobs. Actually I quite admired him as a showman and performer. Let's face it, he did some impressive work in turning around the company. That deserves recognition. It does not deserve deification.
 

 

And yet only 4% of people are sociopaths. I call total bull on this. It can't be just three.

 

Don't play coy, and don't break our rules.

TS: You are simply out of your depth regarding medical conditions. Give yourself a break and recognize the fact. Read the literature before you spout off like you're doing. It's immaterial what percentage of whatever population you're talking about may fit a specific diagnosis. You were asking about one specific person. SJ.

 

You mean YOUR rules. When I look at the personal abuse and insults in many of your posts it seems that you yourself are a key  contributor to the flamewars on AI. You always end up playing the rules card when you've lost it. I call you once again for lying about me on the email address. You know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure people notice your complete silence on that. It's your choice. Integrity ? (look it up)

 

So do you have any further explanation as to why only 4% of the population is diagnosed sociopath, despite only three of these factors being considered diagnosable when a significantly larger portion of the population can have three? 

IIRC … The original case was invented because Mr Jobs had confronted other CEOs about details of their hiring practices. Specifically, he objected to their hiring personal calling Apple employees, at their place of work aka desks during working hours, to make job offers. Calling at home, visiting at the lunch-bar across the road from Apple HQ, etc, would not raise objections; just no fishing in the company's pond during office hours.

 

Cheers