Emails Reveal Battle Over Employee Poaching Between Google and Facebook

colinneagle (2544914) writes "Apple, Google, and a slew of other high-tech firms are currently embroiled in a class-action lawsuit on allegations that they all adhered to tacit anti-poaching agreements. With that case currently ongoing, we've seen a number of interesting executive emails come to light, including emails showing that Steve Jobs threatened Palm's CEO with a full-fledged legal assault if the company kept going after Apple engineers. There is also correspondence between Sergey Brin, Marissa Mayer, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and Google's Jonathan Rosenberg discussing the threat that Google saw in Facebook hiring its engineers. The discussion elevates, with Sandberg pointing out the hypocrisy of Google growing to prominence by hiring engineers from major Silicon Valley firms. Rosenberg then hints at the potential for a 'deeper relationship' that Google would be willing to reach as long as Facebook stops hiring its engineers, going so far as to tell Sandberg to 'fix this problem.'"

Comments

Amusing? sentence before the redaction:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Finally, we (or basically I) have not done a good enough job of high rewards for high performance." - Sergey Brin

Re:Amusing? sentence before the redaction:

[bobbied]

This is why it's always ultimately best to work in government. The pay isn't high, but the work environment is ideal.

Huh? My first job as a college graduate engineer was with the DOD as a civilian. The pay is OK, but not great as you suggest. But I can tell you that the work environment is NOT ideal, even in the best of circumstances. I had great people to work for and with. They where among the best I've had in my 25-30 years so far. But, it is maddeningly frustrating to work for the government, if you care even a small amount about doing the job efficiently the right way. Maybe I'm just too frugal, but I found the wholesale waste that happened due to all the rules and laws to be frustrating to watch. Things such as spending $250K to get a $750K worth of equipment purchased, or throwing away 90% of a certain kind of part because they where so poor in quality that we had to test and select parts that met specs to repair equipment. Then we'd end up having to re-repair things because these junk parts drifted out of tolerance quickly.

If you have the right mindset, I suppose government work is fine. But if you try to care, or actually do the right thing by your customers in the most efficient way possible, it's an exercise in frustration.

Google and Apple conspired to do evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh the humanity.

Ultimate fanboi war!

Re:Unions

[NapalmV]

Nice troll. Except the relationship is not symmetrical in any other ways either, e.g. the employees cannot fire the CEO and/or the board at any time for whatever reason (like in globalization! cost cuts! out with the fat cats! let's offshore the board! etc.).

Re:Poaching is bad for employees too

[SpzToid]

Poaching and wanting H1-B rules relaxed means I.T. workers whose knowledge is perishable in the marketplace as technology evolves are getting screwed from the tech billionaires. Been that way for decades, and if that's not enough to make you puke, young Zuckerberg and his buddies even started a PAC to lobby on their behalf.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innov...

Re:Poaching is bad for employees too

[Anonymous Coward]

Those poor indentured servants, making only four times the median salary, instead of five.

This is NOT slavery

[sjbe]

For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants.

Seriously folks. Let's not for a moment pretend that this is remotely similar to actual slavery. We're talking about two companies to collude to suppress wages for employees that by all objective standards are paid pretty well and have pretty good lives. Are you seriously going to claim that that is in any way comparable to being the property of another human being?

Yes this collusion is wrong. No it isn't even close to slavery. Claiming that the two are anything similar is unbelievably clueless.

Re:This is NOT slavery

[geek]

For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants.

Seriously folks. Let's not for a moment pretend that this is remotely similar to actual slavery. We're talking about two companies to collude to suppress wages for employees that by all objective standards are paid pretty well and have pretty good lives. Are you seriously going to claim that that is in any way comparable to being the property of another human being?

Yes this collusion is wrong. No it isn't even close to slavery. Claiming that the two are anything similar is unbelievably clueless.

Is it that far off really? Many engineers come out of school with 100k+ in debt. They go to work for one of these companies and can never leave because of secret agreements from the execs. Their wages are kept artificially low in a high cost of living area. Between rent/mortgage and other costs of living, they simply can't afford to drop the job and go elsewhere without having another job in the wings.

This isn't much different from indentured servitude. Only with indentured servants there is typically a contract up front, after X number of years you're free to move on. In Silicon Valley its all backroom deals, under the table and out of sight from the public. Your "owners" own you without you explicitly knowing it, there is no end date and there is serious direct career consequences if you try to change it.

They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.

Re:This is NOT slavery

[sjbe]

I didn't say it is like slavery,

You most certainly did. You said "For employees it is evil a sort of substitute for slaves and indentured servants." It is nothing like a substitute for slavery and claiming so makes you look really clueless.

How is it NOT like indentured servitude if your employer's competitors have all agreed with your employer that you're not allowed to work for them, that you have to stay with your current employer?

Because Google and Facebook and Apple are not the extent of the IT universe no matter what they might want you to believe.

How is wage suppression via collusion that involves locking employees to one employer NOT like indentured servitude?

Are you really that stupid? You can't figure out the difference? Do you even know what indentured servitude is? Nobody was locked to Google. It's at will employment even if the employer is a douche. Indentured servitude is slavery. It means you are property. It means you don't own your own body. Nobody at Google is anything remotely resembling property.

Your attack on my statement is idiotic

Your statement was idiotic and absurdly hyperbolic nonsense.

Re:This is NOT slavery

[geek]

They may not be subjected to beatings but they are certainly subject to economic ruin if they try to change or improve their station. I've seen it happen. I've seen good engineers leave engineering altogether because they became untouchable simply because of who they once worked for.

Can you elaborate on this please?

My father worked for Cisco. Amazingly, every place he applied for while still there, would refuse to interview him, when only 5 years before he was one of the most sought after engineers in his field. Eventually he left Cisco and opened his own small business outside of Engineering because he simply couldn't even get interviewed anywhere. He nearly went broke trying.

I have two friends, one who worked for Google and another for Apple. Both left Engineering and went into the Accounting sector because they were untouchable by anyone.The only jobs they would get interviewed for were paying half what they used to make at small shops with virtually no health benefits.

In fact almost everyone I know that worked as an Engineer/software dev has now left the industry. In no small part because of this, coupled with a bit of age discrimination.

Re:Unions

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Party-of-the-rich-In-Congress-it-s-the-Democrats-5363121.php

"WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are the party of the rich, right? It's a label that has stuck for decades, and you're hearing it again as Democrats complain about GOP opposition to raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits.

But in Congress, the wealthiest among us are more likely to be represented by a Democrat than a Republican. Of the 10 richest House districts, only two have Republican congressmen. Democrats claim the top six, sprinkled along the East and West coasts. Most are in overwhelmingly Democratic states like New York and California.

The richest: New York's 12th Congressional District, which includes Manhattan's Upper East Side, as well as parts of Queens and Brooklyn. Democrat Carolyn Maloney is in her 11th term representing the district.

Per capita income in Maloney's district is $75,479. That's more than $75,000 a year for every man, woman and child. The next highest income district, which runs along the southern California coast, comes in at $61,273. Democrat Henry Waxman is in his 20th term representing the Los Angeles-area district.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district comes in at No. 8.

Across the country, Democratic House districts have an average per capita income of $27,893. That's about $1,000 higher than the average income in Republican districts. The difference is relatively small because Democrats also represent a lot of poor districts, putting the average in the middle.

Democrats say the "party of the rich" label is more about policies than constituents."

This is why I became a leftist

[meta-monkey]

When I was little, my daddy told me "never attribute to malice what might as well be ignorance." And I believed this. So I was a libertarian and was suspicious of regulations on business. Let companies compete in the free market! Leave them be, government busybodies!

But then I grew up.

It is not the purpose of government to serve the people. It is the purpose of government to preserve the status quo. To keep the rich rich and the poor poor. These corporations give massive amounts of money to both political parties, and they get what they pay for. Fat government contracts. Protection from competitors, foreign and domestic. You think they give a shit about unemployment? Hell no. They LOVE unemployment. Keeps the workers in line knowing there's 5 other people who would love to take their job if they get uppity. Student loan debt forgiveness? Hells no. Debt keeps the slaves tied to their wheels. And if our barristas have Ph.Ds, all the better. Damn tech workers think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle? Haha, bring in the H1-Bs! Secret backroom deals to cap salaries! The nerve thinking Americans should earn middle class wages...in America. Working at the most profitable companies in history. We need that money to maximize shareholder value! The Dow's through the roof with massive unemployment? Perfect!

That is not ignorance. That is malice.

So, fuck 'em. Fuck 'em hard. I am a socialist.

Re:This is why I became a leftist

[ubersoldat2k7]

It is the purpose of government to preserve the status quo. To keep the rich rich and the poor poor

Actually, many of this corporations didn't exist ten years ago and none of this guys weren't shit-load-millionairs. So there, the govermente sucks at preserving the status quo.

Re:This is why I became a leftist

[Cyberax]

A few years ago I read a financial magazine on an airplane (quick googling tells that it was WSJ, I can't find a direct link but this blog post describes it: http://blog.rongarret.info/201... ) about how companies should watch their stock options closely and do not allow 'unnecessary' employees like chefs to get them. Because if a company grows big then these peons might actually become members of the Rich! And little people totally do not deserve it.

I wanted to break a window and throw this magazine out.

Spank 'em hard

[MetalliQaZ]

As an engineer that could have been affected by these shenanigans, I hope that each of these companies gets spanked and spanked hard. A message needs to be sent that abusing their talented, non-union labor force will have stinging consequences.

Adam Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

Adam Smith wrote eloquently about this vary topic in 1776! He wrote "Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this [natural] rate". Smith means the natural rate as determined by market supply and demand. Apparently this is precisely what occurred. Those who feel compelled to pen remarks would be well advised to read Adam Smith instead.

The final soultion.

[VortexCortex]

Shaka, when the walls fell! Gorbachev and Regan, at Geneva. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!

Google, when the being wasn't evil. Zuckerberg, his fucks dumb. Eric Schmidt, with nothing to hide. Dathon and Picard at El Adrel.

Custer, his last stand. Murphey, his law unbroken. Snowden, his PRISM wide open.

Re:Unions

[Cyberax]

That may be true, but it's still misleading. $75k per capita is high middle class, and if it's California then it's probably a self-made middle class rather than inherited. Such people usually understand that help from the government is sometimes necessary to make poor peoples' lives at least bearable and to give their children a chance of success.

We're talking about uber-rich rich, the ones that have hundreds of millions in the bank - THEY are mostly Republican.

There is a major difference

[kasperd]

There is a major difference between agreeing not to hire from each other, and just not actively going after each other's employees. I have worked at Google in the past, and while I was working there I was actively being approach by facebook recruiters. I was not the only person being approach like that. I heard from multiple colleagues that they too were being contacted by facebook recruiters. I am aware of multiple of my former colleagues who actually did get jobs at facebook.

To me facebook felt too aggressive in their pursuit of Google engineers. There was a real practice among facebook recruiters to search through linkedin and any other source, where they could identify Google engineers and contact them. I saw enough evidence pointing towards those people being contacted simply because they were currently working for Google. Personally I had zero interest in switching from Google to facebook, I don't think I even bother answering, when I was approached by facebook.

If Google and facebook had reached an agreement under which facebook would be a little less aggressive in their pursuit of Google engineers, I would not have feared this would have a negative impact on my salary. And it would have felt a bit more reasonable to me. The recruiters could still look for talented employees, and if by chance they end up finding Google employees, they could still approach them just like they would have, if they had not been Google employees. As long as they weren't directly picking candidates based on them working for Google, I would call it an improvement.

Some people have argued those companies shouldn't even actively be contacting candidates. Instead they should wait for interested candidates to submit a resume on their own. Even that would not even get close to not hiring each other's employees.

Employees could still move from Google to facebook, they just had to take initiative to submit a resume. I would only consider there to be a real problem, if facebook would reject resumes submitted by candidates, just because they happened to work for Google. I have seen no evidence of such a practice existing.

Re:There is a major difference

[IamTheRealMike]

Hey Kasper,

It's Mike H, remember me? We used to work together in SRE ;) How is the startup going? I have also recently moved on from the big G.

Now. When this thing first started to bubble up, I didn't feel very concerned either. OK, so I got fewer emails from recruiters than otherwise would. No big deal, not like there was exactly a shortage of those.

However, I just want to point out one thing:

I would only consider there to be a real problem, if facebook would reject resumes submitted by candidates, just because they happened to work for Google. I have seen no evidence of such a practice existing.

Did you read the article? It seems that the only reason such a situation did not occur is because Sandberg told Google to pound sand. During the time in question, these emails clearly show that a very senior Google executive was directly asking Facebook not to hire Google employees, even if they employees in question wanted to go work there and what's more, good corporate relations were being pegged to that demand.

I must admit, I never knew much about Rosenberg and don't have many memories of him (can't even recall what he looks like). But regardless, this paints Google in a very negative light indeed. Rosenberg was willing to threaten other companies in order to make them stop not just pursuing but actually hiring "his" people. Facebook refused, but who knows what other companies didn't? Was that really the only time he took that approach? Was this a Rosenberg-specific moment of madness/idiocy or does it run deeper? I await further discovery with great interest. Even if this was a brief failure on the behalf of just one executive, that's still completely unacceptable and Rosenberg needs to be fired, now. Employees are not assets whose freedom of employment can be traded for corporate deals and to treat them that way is completely unacceptable.

Re:There is a major difference

[synx]

I encourage anyone with skin in the game to read the court documents, they are easy to read and really lay out the case for how anti-recruitment agreements (whereby Google agreed not to directly recruit from Apple and vice versa) directly affect overall pay scale. It is laid out clearly, concretely, and isn't just a wishful case. There are a few solid narratives which I think will put google under severe pressure at trial (eg: giving EVERY employee a 10% raise because of Facebook's aggressive recruiting).

First off, it's a FACT that Google's (and other companies) agreements are illegal. That isn't even what this case is about - the DOJ came to a settlement and Google is no longer allowed to make such agreements. This case is about wage impact and class impact. Now that the class action was certified by a judge, there is good chance that in a trial a connection between the illegal activities the companies in question were conducting and class-impact and wages were affected.

Since you used to work at Google, presumably you're a smart person, I hope you can see how your own personal feelings about how recruiters from other companies should or should not behave have little bearing on the actual illegal activities that Google was undertaking.

Now, as a Google employee, you certainly know about the pay bands, right? That your pay is not at the sole discretion of your hiring manager or your manager, but set in a company wide policy that employees of job title X get paid between $A - $B with GSU/RSU/option grants in a specific range as well. There are pay bands for every single title in the company (except maybe executives). Google (and Intel, and many companies) make it a high priority to keep internal equity between employees at given titles (eg: SRE II), so if too many employees were being recruited away and retained they would have to adjust pay, either by giving promotions or adjusting pay bands.

As we know, Google had to elect to do the latter. In response to Facebook recruiting, Google gave across the board 10% raises, and specific raises to SRE titles as well. This is all laid out in court discovery, and is a fact, even Google's lawyers dont deny that.

The class filing has a lot of discovery, a strong narrative, and statistical modeling to demonstrate there was "class wide impact" (aka YOU were affected by your coworkers inability to discover their true worth via getting unsolicited job offers).

Now, finally, you said "some people have argued... shouldn't even be actively be contacting candidates." The question is ... why is this justified? Where's the legal basis for such a strict restriction? Also how does it affect overall market dynamics? Maybe if there was an country-wide law for this, but what purpose would it serve? In a market based economy wages are set by companies bidding for employees. Since a lot of people in this field have jobs nearly all the time, the only way to find out they are unpaid is to be offered a job with a higher pay. There are only 2 ways for this to happen, one is for the employee to seek, the other is for companies to reach out. Why restrict companies?

I think a lot of your arguments are around the notion of definitions of "aggressive", polite or decorum. Legally speaking there isnt any distinction here, and I am not sure the common good is benefited by restricting the function of the market of jobs and employees.

Re:There is a major difference

[shutdown -p now]

If you're being annoyed by Facebook recruiters, it's fairly easy to tell them to GTFO. It's something between you and Facebook, not between Google and Facebook, so there's no reason why Google should intercede on your behalf and negotiate a blanket restriction - especially when that other guy who's in the office next door to you might actually appreciate those offers.

Amazon seems to be similarly active at trying to recruit people from MS. I don't find it any difficult to tell them that I'm not interested in the career opportunities that they have to offer when they email me every couple of months or so.

Re:Unions

[Cyberax]

Why must they live in the richest Congressional districts? A Congress district is a large place, and even one very rich man won't raise the average (never mind median) income by much.

Re:Poaching is bad for employees too

[K. S. Kyosuke]

By the same logic, the H1Bs should be supremely happy, what with landing their dream jobs...or not? Now I'd argue that if the money offered doesn't correspond to what demand and supply would want it to be, it's still bad even if it's only partially bad.

Re:Poaching is bad for employees too

[shutdown -p now]

By the same logic, the H1Bs should be supremely happy, what with landing their dream jobs...or not?

Many H1Bs do land their dream jobs, and actually get paid the same as their American colleagues, you know. The entire anti-H1B story focuses on cases of abuse, which, I'll give you, are numerous, but do not represent the industry as a whole. I don't know of a single H1B person in Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple that would get less than what a local would with the same skills and experience. It's sweatshops like Tata that really abuse it, but their horror stories are the only thing you ever hear about on the subject.

There Is No Spoon

[mx b]

Really, the issue is that people like to attach labels to things so they can strawman you. There really isn't such a thing as a left and a right in American mainstream politics; it is one big Corporate Party where we get the "left" and "right" labels based on which corporate industry you pander to the most. They fight with each other so much only because the industries they represent happen to often be at odds. It's not because either really subscribes to a real philosophy.

In past elections, when the country has a "vote the bums out" attitude, we see massive switch over from one party to the other. After Bush, there was a flood of congresspeople to the Democrat side for the election so they could be "Not Bush/Republican". After the antics of Obama's first term, we saw a flood of people switching parties to Republican to be "Not Obama/Democrat". Really, the party title means little now because most of these bozos are the SAME PEOPLE, they switch their party affiliation as the wind blows to try to stay in office.

I say all of this because being leftist/socialist is not necessarily shown as a bad thing just because there are some douches in power that align with the "left". That is a logical fallacy in itself, and we must all try to rise above that and not let the labels define us -- which is exactly what the "left" and "right" want us to do. Let's have a real conversation on the problems of the country, and possible fixes.

Vote Green Party, Justice Party, or Libertarian Party, in 2014!