Slashdot Mirror
Google, Apple Settle Justice Dept. Hiring Probe
Ponca City, We Love You writes "The LA Times reports that under a proposed settlement with the Justice Department, six major Silicon Valley firms — Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Intuit and Pixar — would be barred from pledging not to 'cold call' one another's employees. Federal officials have been scrutinizing such agreements for more than a year, concerned that they restrained competition for skilled workers and kept an artificial cap on wages by avoiding expensive bidding wars. If the court fight had proceeded, it could have helped decide the legality of such accords, not just in the high-tech sector but across all industries. But the fight had risks for each side. To win, the Justice Department would have had to convince a court that workers had suffered significant harm. A loss for the companies would have opened the door to a rush of lawsuits."
Google is probably in the worst position for this to come out because it's yet another example of how bad that company has become.
Does anyone have a good suggestion for an email provider and a search engine now?
It's like Google has become what Yahoo was back in the day.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
This does not restrict any employee of these companies from shopping their skills to the others.
FTFA:Further, some companies said that although they had agreements not to cold-call partners' employees, they never agreed not to hire one another's employees. Google said it had hired hundreds of employees from companies with which it collaborated, through job fairs, employee referrals and other means.
Cartelized monopolies (or monopsonies, in this case) are hard to maintain.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I don't doubt the need for such anti-trust regulations, but it just seems such an uphill battle, the investigation, lengthy court battle, etc. I wonder if there is a better structural solution.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
How dumb was this ill-conceived and poorly executed conspiracy? Let us count the ways.
1. There is no way that potential savings from these ridiculous schemes could have warranted the risks. Just how much money are we talking about saving by not losing a few important employees? Thousands? Chump change. Dumb.
2. Whatever the costs, we're talking about multinational corporations with billions of dollars in the bank. Really, they couldn't dip into those rainy day funds to counter a few offers? It's not just miserly. It's dumb.
3. We knew Apple was a bully. Turns out, it is an even bigger bully than we realized. According to the complaint: "Apple requested an agreement from Adobe to refrain from cold-calling each other's employees. Faced with the likelihood that refusing would result in retaliation and significant competition for its employees, Adobe agreed." Pissing off a key ally? Dumb.
4. Now, everyone working at one of these companies has got to be thinking the same thing: "Did I get screwed?" That's not exactly the kind of gung-ho, morale-building conversations you want going on. Dumb.
5. Those who do think they got the shaft may sue. And because this is an antitrust finding, the settlement will allow anyone who wins in federal court to "recover three times the damages the person has suffered." Say goodbye to whatever measly amounts the companies saved through these agreements. Dumb.
6. People maintained lists. They kept records. According to the complaint: "Pixar instructed human resources personnel to adhere to the agreement and maintain a paper trail in the event Apple accused Pixar of violating the agreement." Dumb.
7. Under this settlement, the Justice Department gets to check up on the companies just about whenever it pleases. Thought the federal government was interfering too much before? Well, congratulations. It will get worse. Dumb.
8. Did they really not think this would come to light? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Original Source
-THE END-
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Water
Is
Wet.
June 6, 2007 Congressional Testimony of Laszlo Bock: "Google's hiring process is rigorous, and we make great efforts to uncover the most talented employees we can find."
September 24, 2010 Justice Department Press Release: "Beginning no later than 2006, Apple and Google executives agreed not to cold call each other's employees...Beginning no later than September 2007, Google and Intel executives agreed not to cold call each other's employees...In June 2007, Google and Intuit executives agreed that Google would not cold call any Intuit employee."
I really hate these articles because they make me feel like an incompetent programmer. I have never had a cold call from any of these companies. They really do that?? What am I doing wrong???
Qxe4
ok, why again would this be "BAD" for Google?
Out of all the companies mentioned, Google would be the one which most of the skilled employees would want to flock to anyways..
net-net this is a win for Google.
On the other hand, this is only about cold-calling.
If an employee is unhappy and gets off his behind, searches the (public) jobs database and applies for a job, this never affected them.
If someone is too passive and lethargic to express interest to work in your company, why would any HR department even WANT to cold call them??
This must be a new meaning of the word "settlement". In the past, I thought it meant settling with the victims of an act, not with some third party. It doesn't seem like a settlement if there is nothing in it for the victims other than a promise not do it (openly, at least) for the next five years. I would just call this an "agreement". In particular, is the DOJ releasing the information they collected, so that potential victims could use it to file suit?
I can't believe large companies would even have to bother with a cold calling strategy. Once you've been in tech a few years (at least this is my experience), hiring of good people mostly happens through word-of-mouth.
I've only gotten cold calls from the most rinky-dink companies.
Companies like Apple, Google, etc. probably already have a good bit of cross-pollination. I just can't see them saying "OK, rev up the phone banks".
As an employee of one of the aforementioned companies, I for one can not wait for the inevitable bidding war for my next salary. /sarcasm.
the heart of the american heartland is still winning over the brains of the american education system.
it is 2010 and we are still funneling our money and votes at the tough-guys of the 1920s.
the punchline: who should the government choose for a Computer Network Defense team?
"It was supposed to be a war fighter unit, not a geek unit,"
And yet, they do seem to understand the importance of brain, rather than brawn: "Intelligence was important to the mission, Campbell said." ... They lit their cigars and watched the fireworks shoot across the sky."
for instance, they managed to get an entire army of warriors to.. change their passwords: "Though the task force in the early years lacked clout, it did have some notable successes, veterans said. During Moonlight Maze, it issued the first military-wide order to change passwords, said Marc Sachs, who had been an Army engineer."
but who was able to break right into the warrior networks? "Then the real culprits were identified: A pair of 16-year-old boys in California and a teenager from Israel"
geeks, exactly. possibly homosexual and/or jewish. i'm guessing not brawn. brawn can do things like fixing a two-digit year problem: "protected against any "Y2K" calamity. A few minutes after midnight
but still, we should probably just spend more. on warriors: "The focus initially was on defense. In 2000, the task force, which had more than doubled in size, took on the offensive mission."
for christ's sake they called something "solar sunrise." i'm not saying they should have to know latin; i'm just saying war-not-brains is the mentality.
we can tell the voters feel it because washington does.
please do your part and vote for a geek.
this has been a public service announcement from the Vote For Pedro committee.
love,
-benny
I've yet to see this. I don't see Google ads on every email sent from a google account, nor do I see lots of confusing non-answers on a search. The ones that are ads are clearly marked and are, _sometimes_, actually helpful. When they aren't, they aren't sufficiently distracting to keep me from finding what I need quickly and efficiently.
So from my perspective as a user of their search and a receiver of email sent from google accounts, I'd have to disagree. I don't send or read mail using a google account, so I'm not talking from that perspective.
Just because they target you with ads appropriate to your search or query doesn't make them bad. They have to make money the same as anyone else. Would would be annoying is making the ads sufficiently distracting as to interfere with me getting the search results I need. But I don't mind ads relevant to my search -- especially if they occasionally help me get my job (whatever my 'search job' is) done.