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Microsoft, Google, Lee Settle Hiring Dispute

Posted by Zonk on from the everyone-play-nice-now dept.

linumax wrote to mention that Google, Microsoft, and Kai-Fu Lee have reached an agreement, after months of negotiation. From the article: "In a brief statement released late Thursday, Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the parties had entered into a private agreement that resolved all issues to their mutual satisfaction. He also declined to give any details on the agreement, saying the terms were confidential and that all parties had agreed to make no other statements to the media regarding it. However, he did say that Microsoft was 'pleased with the terms of our settlement with Google and Dr. Lee.'" We originally reported on this back in July.

6 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft and google by Blade80 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought it said "microsoft and google settle dispute with kung fu"

  2. How Is This A Rights Issue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't see how Kai Fu Lee's hiring at Google as anything do with "my rights online" or anybody else's online rights. It was a civil complaint by Microsoft that we violated an agreement with them by going to Google, and now all parties have amicably settled their differences.

    Besides, why is this is an issue for slashdot? One man's hiring and change of companies is hardly newsworthy. Employment disputes like this are not uncommon.

    1. Re:How Is This A Rights Issue? by DaHat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Many here incorrectly think that non-compete agreements are invalid everywhere... which simply is not the case.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
    2. Re:How Is This A Rights Issue? by Michalson · · Score: 4, Informative

      You don't know all the facts concerning the case.

      - Microsoft hired Mr Lee, with a generous salary and bonus, to be in charge of developing a specific, and very valuable, asset. Namely the improvement of interface technologies/web interfaces for Asian customers, something that has become very important to global companies with China moving into the IT age. As a condition of his handsome salary, Mr Lee signed a contract saying he would not work in that specific area for a certain amount of time after leaving Microsoft, so that he could not sell Microsoft technology to someone else.

      - Mr Lee and Google began to communicate on Microsoft time. In those communications Mr Lee sent Google information on specific people Google should hire in order to create a shadow version of Microsoft's own Asian UI division, with the understanding that he would be in charge of it.

      - In those same communications, Google identified the fact that Mr Lee's contract made such a venture a very big violation. Knowing this, Google communicated various loopholes and ways to hide what he was doing, suggesting things like Google putting him on a fake paid "vacation" (in which he would actually be working, but done of the record in order to deceive any court that investigated the matter) for a number of months so that he could violate his contract while avoiding the penalties.

  3. In other news by alfrin · · Score: 4, Funny

    Chairs around the Microsoft office were deeply relieved with the recent settlement between Microsoft and Google.

  4. Let me explain it: by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 4, Funny

    Google has agreed to pretend to agree with Microsoft, and Microsoft has agreed to believe that.

    We all now Kai-Fu is gonna do what he was hired for, never mind if his official position is to brew coffee in the Google Restaurant.