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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]

#121

Post by jariel »

shalmanese wrote: post #17
jariel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny as workers get caught up in notions of 'individual freedom', which they see as a benefit, but don't realize that systematically what this favours is simply power. A company with 100x the resources of another, never needs to worry about IP or innovating, because it just plucks off other people's work, integrates into it's own machine and receives the market surpluses, risk free. So yes - by getting tons of…

> A company with 100x the resources of another, never needs to worry about IP or innovating, because it just plucks off other people's work, integrates into it's own machine and receives the market surpluses, risk free. Which is why we're all typing this on DEC machines running OS/2 on AOL internet with 3Com modems.

Funny you have to pick all 30 year old examples.

We have been running almost entirely Windows and Mac for over 20 years (at least in consumer land).

We have been running mostly Intel and nVidia for over 20 years.

We have been running mostly Chrome and maybe 2 others for 10 years.

We have 1 comprehensive social network (FB/Insta) for over 10 years.

We have 3/4 major internet providers and 4 wireless carriers - forever.

We have essentially 1 Search Engine.

We have 2 smartphone platforms for over 12 years.

... when there are 'new markets to be exploited' or a fundamental shift in a market (ie feature phones to smartphones) - new entrants have a chance, but outside of that, they don't as incumbents win relatively easily unless they get lazy.

Each of the major players above has been able to leverage their market power into domination.

IP is one of the few vectors of power for smaller companies (often the only vector) that stop these behemoths from wiping them out. Sadly, depending on the scenario, there are often few material IP protections to be had.

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

#122

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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…

Another commenter already responded, but some more details:

California's pro-employee stance starts with section 16600, which states "Except as provided in this chapter, every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business of any kind is to that extent void." That was passed in 1872 and has effectively banned non-competes in CA.

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

#123

Post by toomanybeersies »

donor20 wrote: post #50
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…

Labor mobility is really low in Europe. In france you can be tied up in litigation (tribunel through appeals) for 10 years easily on an employment termination (my info is from 2016 time frame so may be dated). There is no such thing as at-will employment. Also, noncompete's are weird. If someone is receiving full pay on gardening leave they can work for someone else. If you instead have them work till end of notice p…

Another way to describe "low labour mobility" is "high job stability". It's easy to sit in an ivory tower on a $200k+ silicon valley salary, with a healthy job market if you get the sack, and bemoan the fact that workers have rights and can't be fired because their employer feels like it.

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

#124

Post by barry-cotter »

ytwySXpMbS wrote: post #118
barry-cotter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wa…

I’m not sure where you’re getting your numbers from. Assuming by “poorer” you mean nominal GDP, Germany would be the richest state in the US.

My numbers were out of date. Germany has a higher GDP per capita than South Carolina, Alabama, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas and Mississippi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany

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

#125

Post by [deleted] »

barry-cotter wrote: post #108
pm90 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wa…

[deleted]

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

#126

Post by dx87 »

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.

That's the reason Nassim Taleb gave in Black Swan as well. He said in Europe and Asia, failing is looked at negatively, while in the USA failing is fine, as long as it wasn't due to lack of effort. So the USA has a lot of failures, but also a lot of innovation, whereas European businesses are more stable, but also don't innovate as much.

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

#127

Post by toomanybeersies »

brianwawok wrote: post #86
Waterluvian wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Or are developers paid a disproportionate wage in comparison to other jobs?

Why should a software developer get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, while those who weren't lucky enough to be born with the required intelligence (despite what coding bootcamps say, not everyone is cut out to write code) are doomed to work a low-wage job for their entire life? It's the height of privilege. And if you subscribe to the theory that intelligence is a product of a child's developmental environment (nature over nature), it serves to increase social stratification and decrease class mobility.

Builders and electricians are just as much key employees as software developers. In Australia, a skilled electrician can earn the same salary as a software developer, and that's the way it should be. My job is easy, I sit at a desk all day. I don't have to wake up at 5 AM every day and spend 8 hours a day (more like 6 in Australia, thanks to the unions) running cables in a construction site.

I'd love to see most software developers try their hands at a trade, it's backbreaking work.

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

#128

Post by donw »

mattmanser wrote: post #63
donor20 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor mobility is really low in Europe. In france you can be tied up in litigation (tribunel through appeals) for 10 years easily on an employment termination (my info is from 2016 time frame so may be dated). There is no such thing as at-will employment. Also, noncompete's are weird. If someone is receiving full pay on gardening leave they can work for someone else. If you instead have them work till end of notice p…

France != Europe. This sort of thing doesn't exist in the UK, for example. As for firing people, perhaps France, but not UK. Most jobs have a 3-6 month probation period, with a week's notice either way, and in the first 2 years you can fire anyone for no reason (apart from reasons of race, gender, pregnancy, etc.). After that, by which point it's obvious they can do the job, generally you have to give a progression o…

I honestly think something like this makes a lot more sense.

First year or so, you're in a probationary period. Unemployment benefits will kick in, but you and the company are still feeling each other out.

After that, you get certain protections, whereby firing you becomes a more lengthy (3-6 month) process with specific regulatory milestones.

Speaking from a management perspective, if I have had an employee that has been solidly meeting the bar for a year, I am better off to work with them to remedy performance problems afterwards, then I am to fire-and-replace.

Training costs are a thing, and there's also a real benefit to not having your workforce continuously worried about being fired on-the-spot.

It is fair for newcomers to "earn their stripes" as it were, to show that they can productively participate in and contribute to the organization, but people that have cleared that hurdle do deserve some protection from bad actors in their management chain.

As always, I like to hear from others where they think this doesn't work. :)

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

#129

Post by davidgay »

oliverx0 wrote: post #111
ChefboyOG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think at-will employment in the US is key to their startup ecosystem. It makes their market very "liquid", as you can hire fast and fire fast.

> I think at-will employment in the US is key to their startup ecosystem. It makes their market very "liquid", as you can hire fast and fire fast.

Is that really the case? I would have naively assumed the typical (median) startup path is something like hire, hire, hire, go-bankrupt? And the successful ones more like hire, hire, hire, hire, hire, go-public?

Easy firing doesn't seem relevant to either of those?

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

#130

Post by boc »

niihau_island wrote: post #94
emteycz wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Maybe it's because Silicon Valley occurred first, and then oppressed most of Europe's "native" companies? It seems that there are some massive sources of wealth for tech companies, such as search, social networks, and e-commerce companies. In Europe, these have all been supplanted by Google, Facebook, and Amazon respectively. In China, on the other hand, these companies were free to grow and establish their own nexus…

Don't mistake government-sponsored protectionism and corporate espionage for innovation. I don't think Europe can copy China's playbook without also banning all American tech from their economy.
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