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Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

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Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#361

Post by abecedarius »

Thorrez wrote: post #103
pm90 wrote: post #57

I don’t understand Jobs’ logic here. Is he just a bully? If Google makes such a great offer that his employee will leave him, shouldn’t he try to make a better offer, or meet with the employee instead of calling Sergey? Say he did get the offer canceled. How would this employee feel about working for a CEO that does this?

>I don’t understand Jobs’ logic here. Is he just a bully? If Google makes such a great offer that his employee will leave him, shouldn’t he try to make a better offer, or meet with the employee instead of calling Sergey? That could wind up in a bidding war that could end up affecting many employees and salaries going up a lot. That's a lot of lost money for Apple, which makes Steve Jobs mad. Additionally, some employ…

> That could wind up in a bidding war that could end up affecting ...

If he called up a competitor and complained about them undercutting prices on competing products, and threatened "This means war", would you be explaining how tolerating competitive bidding is bad for the company? Everyone knows that, and knows, I thought, that the only legitimate response is "Tough shit."

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#362

Post by abecedarius »

93po wrote: post #349
v0idzer0 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a bit of a “gentlemen’s agreement” around poaching in a lot of industries. It’s not uncommon for execs to scold each other over it. Nobody wants to start a poaching war so there’s incentive to be polite on both sides.

It's awful that there is collusion between companies to prevent these workers from getting compensation based on actual market forces. If they care so much about poaching then they need compensation that strongly rewards tenure and pays enough that they won't be tempted to leave. I don't know if this behavior is illegal but I feel like it should be.

It is.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#363

Post by shadowgovt »

thefz wrote: post #186
eyelidlessness wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s simpler than that. He was an average person. Had a lot of business acumen, particularly well timed vision (after a bunch of poor timing), then he was a really successful guy who was just as flawed as the rest of us.

What disappoints me the most is that people treat him as an inventor, when he invented nothing, his engineers did. Dennis Ritchie as an example deserves way more respect than Jobs the buffoon. But if you make "pop" devices to be sold to the layman, you are great in the public eye.

Yes, because you gave the people what they wanted.

It turns out that's all it takes to be popular (and unfortunately, for all their wisdom in other areas, so many tech folks fail to grasp that nuance).

Ritchie did excellent work, but a world filled with nothing but computers that worked like C and UNIX do would be a harsh and inhuman place.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#364

Post by koheripbal »

no_butterscotch wrote: post #199
thayne wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And financially, it was probably worth it to them.

It was, from the wikipedia: > On May 23, 2014, Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe agreed to settle for $324.5 million. > .. > In June 2014, Judge Lucy Koh expressed concern that the settlement may not be a good one for the plaintiffs. Michael Devine, one of the plaintiffs, said the settlement is unjust. In a letter he wrote to the judge he said the settlement represents only one-tenth of the $3 billion in compensation the 6…

No, that was dishonest math. He aggregated ALL TOTAL comp for POTENTIAL employees based upon a BEST-CASE compensation for ALL of them.

...and none of that is realistic. The correct estimate would be the INCREMENTAL comp for the portion of employees that ACTUALLY looked for work with the competitors.

Never blindly trust one-side of the story in a damages lawsuit.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#365

Post by isitmadeofglass »

piyush_soni wrote: post #200
nigamanth wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were competing, to Jobs it could've looked like either Apple or Google was going to stay alive. It is natural for people to threaten competition and I guess not like your competition?

You mean it's natural for CEOs to literally threaten other CEOs?

[dead]

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#366

Post by ano-ther »

pm90 wrote: post #57

I don’t understand Jobs’ logic here. Is he just a bully? If Google makes such a great offer that his employee will leave him, shouldn’t he try to make a better offer, or meet with the employee instead of calling Sergey? Say he did get the offer canceled. How would this employee feel about working for a CEO that does this?

Sounds like Jobs is reminding them of their non-poaching agreement. https://techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/source-apple-and-google-ag...

The document came to light in a lawsuit which Apple, Google and others eventually settled. https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-others-...

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#367

Post by gghffguhvc »

_zzaw wrote: post #355
gghffguhvc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think the main one was Dave Hyatt. Ben Goodger (referenced in those emails) worked on V0.6 of Firefox that Dave started. Ben was founding team at chrome just before these emails (see his LinkedIn for dates). Dave was instrumental on WebKit for Safiri. Chrome picked WebKit too. Dave was also that good and was well known to Steve. I also think parakey was the startup referenced as his other option (Blake Ross a…

Hyatt was honestly the first name that came to my mind, and in fact I had to look him up to be certain that he didn't move to Google. I guess I assumed that if it was Hyatt, he'd no longer be at Apple, since it sounded like the person in question wanted to leave, but who knows—maybe Apple got him to stay? Steve Jobs was obsessed with loyalty, so I figured that anyone applying for a job at Google would be dead to Appl…

Steve probably needed this team for iPhone Safari. That could explain why he was so pissed. Perhaps just showing them the iOS plans and a some extra stock was enough. Perhaps Google pulled the offer. Perhaps both.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#368

Post by shkkmo »

onethought wrote: post #346
shkkmo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Jobs predicting this is what they were up to and calling google and complaining they are poaching a whole team from Apple. Is bullying? How would you feel if you were actively looking for another job and the CEO of your company repeatedly called one the the companies that was going to give you an offer to yell at them and try to intimidate them with threats of "war" into not hiring you? That sure sounds a lot l…

Want that for non complete agreements? Not for CEOs shouting at each other. This want “an individual looking for a job”. This was a google going after an entire team. Honestly everyone has the bullying round the wrong way here. Steve jobs was an ass in this instance, but his actions are likely 99.9% of other CEOs actions

> Want that for non complete agreements?

Some places have made those illegal or greatly restricted them, hopefully that will spread.

> This want “an individual looking for a job”. This was a google going after an entire team.

It was google trying to hire ~3 internal recommendations. From the emails it sounds like for the main hiring prospect was potentially more interested if all 3 got offers and was also already looking at offer from other companies. I don't specifically see anything about it being an "entire team", so I'm curious where you got that from.

> Steve jobs was an ass in this instance, but his actions are likely 99.9% of other CEOs actions

I think the 99.9% number is a bit too high (and certainly hard to source). I do think you are correct that this (and other) illegal business practices are extremely common among CEOs, especially in companies of this size. Though I think CEOs of companies of this size are usually quite a bit more circumspect in how they go about it.

Again, the legal way to approach this is to make the developers an offer of better projects (which is sounds like Apple tried), money or other perks to make the job attractive. A volatile CEO who did what Jobs did here would probably count against that (if the employees knew what he did.)

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#369

Post by endorphine »

mshake2 wrote: post #209
endorphine wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it's "a small price to pay" depends on each and every individual that paid the price. I don't think it makes any sense for 1 single person to decide if the price paid was small, simply because they don't know what actual price was paid (in terms of suffering). Also, it sounds to me that's you're assuming that's a necessitated price to pay, which I don't believe is true (but I don't have any examples either).

If the two options are "Pixar exists, but some employees were treated unfairly" or "Pixar never exists", I will choose the first. Whether or not there are other options is not a hypothetical I care about, I am interested in thinking about the morality of ends vs means of this scenario.

I don't understand how this dichotomy can be useful to you. Even for "ends vs means" the answer isn't always white-or-black.

I see what you're saying, I just don't understand how it promotes a healthy discussion here.

Re: Sergey Brin: Irate Call from Steve Jobs

#370

Post by mbar84 »

28304283409234 wrote: post #258
ec109685 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a mutual non compete going. Here’s another instance where a cold recruiting email was “against policy”: https://twitter.com/TechEmails/status/1443263744906305543?s=...

Ah, the free and open marketat work! Sure glad we left the feudal sefdom behind us!

Ah, the world is not perfect, let's bring to life a monopoly on violence, what could go wrong!
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