Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

cases.justia.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 442 posts

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#81

Post by ma2rten »

Animats wrote: post #2

"That evidence does suggest the engineers drew on knowledge and skills they gained from Hooked to develop a product for their new employer––but California’s policy favoring free mobility for employees specifically allows that. (See Whyte v. Schlage Lock Co. (2002) 101Cal.App.4th 1443, 1464 [rejecting the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, under which a claim for trade secret misappropriation is stated if an employee’s…

Which is why Silicon Valley is in California, and why attempts to create a startup culture elsewhere have mostly failed.

I doubt that that is the main reason. Also, in this case it worked against the startup.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#82

Post by jrott »

ma2rten wrote: post #81
Animats wrote: post #2

"That evidence does suggest the engineers drew on knowledge and skills they gained from Hooked to develop a product for their new employer––but California’s policy favoring free mobility for employees specifically allows that. (See Whyte v. Schlage Lock Co. (2002) 101Cal.App.4th 1443, 1464 [rejecting the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, under which a claim for trade secret misappropriation is stated if an employee’s…

Which is why Silicon Valley is in California, and why attempts to create a startup culture elsewhere have mostly failed. I doubt that that is the main reason. Also, in this case it worked against the startup.

The just so story that is told about this is with no non compete there would be no Intel. The founders would have all been stuck at Fairchild.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#83

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

0xy wrote: post #55
emteycz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why there is no Silicon Valley in Europe then

Because Europe is not at all competitive for tech talent. Fresh graduates earn significantly more money in America than senior-level developers in Europe, with the quasi-exceptions of London and Switzerland (neither in the EU). Why would European developers allow themselves to be shafted out of millions of dollars by staying in Europe?

In London it's only fintech, rest of the IT salaries are a joke compared to SV.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#84

Post by zdragnar »

ChefboyOG wrote: post #40
emteycz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why there is no Silicon Valley in Europe then

I don't know how much of a role this plays, but even with lower market rates, employing a team in Europe can be an expensive, unwieldy task. Firing in particular seems to be a lengthy, drawn out process. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I can imagine how a significantly increased cost for every bad hire might increase the risk profile of a small startup.

It is also a big brake on salaries, too. If employees are difficult to let go, and the cost of a bad hire is compounded by that, then it stands to reason that you wouldn't want to pay high salaries.

Some companies in the US are terrible at getting rid of bad workers- too many cracks for them to fall through. Some, however, are known for paying high salaries and letting anyone go who doesn't live up to them.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#85

Post by renewiltord »

baby wrote: post #78
batmaniam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should rid of the term 'poaching'. There's no such thing. We're not animals, we are free to accept a better offer it comes along. The CEO should have counter offered with something more substantial, but he couldn't so the engineers went to greener pastures.

At the same time how can smaller companies compete with large companies if they can’t match salaries?

Well, they have to compete on some front. If they can't exceed Google on salary + risk-discounted equity + benefits + flexibility + employee-desire-for-company then it is economically efficient that they do not get people.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#86

Post by brianwawok »

Waterluvian wrote: post #62
Animats wrote: post #2

"That evidence does suggest the engineers drew on knowledge and skills they gained from Hooked to develop a product for their new employer––but California’s policy favoring free mobility for employees specifically allows that. (See Whyte v. Schlage Lock Co. (2002) 101Cal.App.4th 1443, 1464 [rejecting the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, under which a claim for trade secret misappropriation is stated if an employee’s…

Right to work law is really good in Ontario. Heck I had a CEO who threw a tantrum because I took my skills to another company (that isn’t even a competitor) and demanded I quit with threats. My lawyer basically laughed at him and he went away. Ontario’s tech sector is growing a lot but hopefully the salary issues will improve.

Why can no one but the US pay developers well? The GDP per cap is there in many countries... but for some reason developers are only key employees in the US?

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#87

Post by renewiltord »

jojobas wrote: post #74
djur wrote: post #19

> The CEO settled on a new plan: Hooked would “sell” three engineers to Apple... Hooked’s CEO pitched the idea to Apple, providing background information about the engineers and sending their resumes. Apple responded that it might consider paying a “finder’s fee”... Even if was inclined to take Hooked's side on this, it was a huge mistake to send information about those engineers without an existing agreement. (Also:…

Is it that hard to find out who the engineers are? Or is it somehow illegal to target other business's engineers for employment?

It was not hard to find out who the engineers were. It is not illegal to target other business's engineers. Hence Apple's actions.

As an interesting aside, it is illegal to agree not to employ each others' engineers, AFAIK (IANAL).

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#88

Post by tptacek »

mthoms wrote: post #56
rossdavidh wrote: post #38

Once the employees know that their CEO is "shopping" the company, it seems like the CEO should have known they would be looking towards the exits (unless, of course, they had lots of equity which would turn into $$ once the acquisition happened, which case they would likely stay put). It was not only kind of sleazy to try to, essentially, sell your employees to another company as if they are your property, but also n…

It was Apple that ultimately backed out of the "acqui-hire", not the target company's CEO. Edit: Nope, I was wrong here. I think the rest of this comment is still relevant though. And for all we know, it may have been her investors that encouraged (demanded?) her to go the route of "selling" the employees[0]. It appears the company would be winding down and they stood to benefit by recouping some of their investment.…

I'm not sure it really matters? A consequence of getting into deep talks with corpdev is that they'll be alerted to employees they want to hire. And there's no way to look good suing someone for offering your employees a better job.

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#89

Post by tikhonj »

baby wrote: post #78
batmaniam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should rid of the term 'poaching'. There's no such thing. We're not animals, we are free to accept a better offer it comes along. The CEO should have counter offered with something more substantial, but he couldn't so the engineers went to greener pastures.

At the same time how can smaller companies compete with large companies if they can’t match salaries?

When you can't compete on salary, you can compete on other axes. Not just financially (equity/etc), but also:

- flexible schedules

- autonomy + impact

- interesting work

- culture (respect, appreciation... etc)

It's not hard for me to imagine an environment where I'd love to work despite giving up a lot of salary. Hell, I'm not unique—just look at how many incredibly skilled people choose research careers over far more lucrative industry jobs.

And yet, I don't see many startups that seem serious about this. If you want to compete for great engineers, choose some of the things I outlined, actually commit to maintaining them and figure out how to demonstrate this (show, not just tell).

Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

#90

Post by fierarul »

bonestamp2 wrote: post #57
Animats wrote: post #2

"That evidence does suggest the engineers drew on knowledge and skills they gained from Hooked to develop a product for their new employer––but California’s policy favoring free mobility for employees specifically allows that. (See Whyte v. Schlage Lock Co. (2002) 101Cal.App.4th 1443, 1464 [rejecting the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, under which a claim for trade secret misappropriation is stated if an employee’s…

> Which is why Silicon Valley is in California I don't think that's the reason -- California's labor market hasn't always been so fair and for that reason it makes complete sense why the court ruled in Apple's favor. Apple, Google, Adobe and some other companies used to have anti-poaching agreements with each other. But, then the courts found that to be unfair to the labor market (people) and the companies settled fo…

The Apple et all antipoaching agreement was illegal the whole time and they knew it.

It wasn't that the courts found it happens to be illegal. What Apple under Jobs' watch did was illegal at a critical time for the industry.

Post reply on HN