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

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

#101

Post by mason55 »

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.

Just FYI that’s not what right to work is. You’re talking about at will employment.

Right to work means they can’t make you join the union.

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

#102

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bitL wrote: post #24
emteycz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Aversion to risk. I was told by German entrepreneurs that they can get funding only when they give bank/VC/investor a collateral of the same value or if they are already profitable and don't need it anymore.

Look at the consequences of personal bankruptcy in Germany [1]. They are severe and permanently close off entire career paths. Europe’s culture is less risk tolerant, fundamentally, than America’s.

That said, entrepreneurship isn’t the sole path to innovation. Germany has a solid history of non-entrepreneur value finding.

[1] http://www.privatinsolvenz-hilfe.org/en/german-bankruptcy-la...

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

#103

Post by [deleted] »

batmaniam wrote: post #18
tallgiraffe wrote: post #4

Sounds like a few engineers found out that Apple was looking into their company and knowing Apple was interested they took a new gig, meanwhile the CEO got upset and decided to fire the last remaining defecting engineer, who out of goodness of heart actually declined Apple, but gratefully took the offer once he got fired. Although it probably hurts to have your team poached, it sounds like potentially it wasn't a gre…

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.

[deleted]

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

#104

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#105

Post by fleshdaddy »

mthoms wrote: post #96
tptacek wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

She certainly deserves lots of flack, but it seems reasonably likely (if not certain), that it was her investors pushing for the "sale" of the employees (ugh), and the lawsuit against Apple. In that context, I don't think the comment I replied to (quoted below) is entirely fair. >Now, I think she may have acquired a reputation as someone who ends up treating her employees like her personal property Why don't we name…

I don't understand why you think that. I will freely admit that I don't have a great grasp on Silicon Valley investor relations but I just assume when you're the head of the company something like this falls back on you. I don't know this just seems to me like a CEO's responsibility not to do.

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

#106

Post by barry-cotter »

ry454 wrote: post #52
emteycz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I believe Europe can create its own SV by following the USA's route: the Europe's equivalent of DoD (which has access to unlimited funds, tens of trillions of euros), needs to come up with a grand multi-decade project and invest into companies that are going to work on related sub-projects. For USA it was the worldwide surveillance system, but for Europe it may be something else, like ITER (but on a bigger scale) or…

Europe does not exist in the relevant sense. Germany does not exist in the relevant sense which is why this is so hard. Start up ecosystems are highly localized, like any other knowledge worker employer ecosystem. Silicon Valley managed to spill over as far as San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area. LA is as tightly coupled to that ecosystem as Boston, New York or Montreal. You can’t evenly divide an ecosystem. In the EU it looks like Berlin might have one, maybe. Europe won’t. The closest you could get would be a border spanning metro area, like Aachen or Strasbourg.

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

#107

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

> Which is why Silicon Valley is in California

It is absolutely why Silicon Valley is in California. As someone who lives in a state where non-competes and non-solicits are strongly enforced, they completely stifle new company formations. Just look at the "founding" of Silicon Valley with Fairchild Semiconductor, the "traitorous eight", and Intel. Those stories would be impossible with enforced non-competes and enforced non-solicits.

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

#108

Post by barry-cotter »

pm90 wrote: post #66
ry454 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Europe can create its own SV by following the USA's route: the Europe's equivalent of DoD (which has access to unlimited funds, tens of trillions of euros), needs to come up with a grand multi-decade project and invest into companies that are going to work on related sub-projects. For USA it was the worldwide surveillance system, but for Europe it may be something else, like ITER (but on a bigger scale) or…

A first step might be to expand the European University system to handle the influx of Graduate students that were previously headed to the US. Give funding, poach the frustrated non tenured profs from the US. Essentially reverse what happened during and after WW2, when the anti semitism caused Germany and then mainland Europe to lose all the amazing talent to the US.

> A first step might be to expand the European University system to handle the influx of Graduate students that were previously headed to the US. Give funding, poach the frustrated non tenured profs from the US.

There is no European university system. There’s a French one, a German one etc. They all pay much, much worse than their US equivalent because they’re substantially poorer than the US. Remember, if Germany was a US state it would be poorer than every state but Mississippi. And this probably understates the difference. By average household consumption the US is $10,000 ahead of Switzerland, number 2 after Hong Kong. The money to massively increase research spending isn’t there.

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

#109

Post by paulcole »

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?

They might not need to. I couldn’t pass an interview at Google. But I’m an average worker and most companies just need average workers.

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

#110

Post by hardwaresofton »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #99
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. Silicon Valley's origin pre-dates these labor laws. Hewlett-Packard was started in the late 1930's. Silicon Valley's success has much more to do with a critical mass of talent and infrastructure that started a long time ago. The labor friendly laws were created as part of California trying to nurt…

Don't forget a lot of government investment.
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