Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring • Hacker News Board

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#161

Post by oblio » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 10:52 AM UTC

cscurmudgeon wrote: post #70

oblio wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your account name I find it hard to take your comment seriously, but: The 20s called. They want their cliches back. Most of the world is richer than US poor people these days. Of course, even if "most" are, there's still 1 billion people barely making enough for food, I'll grant you that.

> Most of the world is richer than US poor people these days. > Based on your account name I find it hard to take your comment seriously, but: Yeah. If you spout shallow nonsense like this, I cannot take you seriously. But out of pity, here goes: Don't let my username fool you. I am probably much younger than you are. I grew up poor in a third-world country in awe of the average American. Now, people like me are bein…

You say "US poor" then say that you were in awe of "average Americans". Make up your mind.

Oh, and "most" = "majority" = >51%. World population = 6.5 billion people sans US. US poor = probably less than 10k dollars per year (maybe less at PPP). So at least 3.5 billion people should be making more. Middle class Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, etc, should definitely cover my claim, based on PPP prices.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#162

Post by CapitalistCartr » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 12:27 PM UTC

ElComradio wrote: post #155

lmakeppleave wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the argument to the extreme, is it OK for every employer in every industry to agree on wages and no-poach? What about on child labor? Minimum Wage? What about colluding on prices? Aren't these all the same infringement? The truth is sometimes society has to take away the rights of the few for the sake of the many. While I agree we tend to do it too often, you will be hard pressed to find many who agree with you…

> you will be hard pressed to find many who agree with you on this matter. Has no bearing on whether it's right or wrong.

Yes, it may. It depends on how you define right and wrong. Not everyone uses your definition. See Utilitarianism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#163

Post by jessriedel » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 2:44 PM UTC

> After the plaintiffs’ lawyers took their 25 percent cut, the settlement would have given about $4,000 to every member of the class.

> Judge Koh said that she believed the case was stronger than that, and that the plaintiffs’ lawyers were taking the easy way out by settling. The evidence against the defendants was compelling, she said.

Can anyone explain this from the perspective of the economic/sociological motivations of the lawyers? People often complain about a huge chunk of the money going to the class-action lawyers who are too eager to settle, but the traditional argument is that a fixed percentage structure (rather than an hourly or flat rate) gives the lawyers the proper incentive to pursue the interests of the class by tying their compensation directly to the legal award.

Here's my best guess: Lawyers, like most people, are risk adverse for sufficiently large amounts of money. (They would rather have $10 million for sure than a 50% chance at $50 million.) On the other hand, the legal award will be distributed over many more plaintiffs. Since it will be much smaller per person, the plaintiffs are significantly less risk adverse. So the lawyers settle even thought it's not in the best interests of the plaintiffs.

This suggests the following speculative solution for correctly aligning the incentives of the lawyers and the class action plaintiffs: either (a) spread the legal work over many lawyers such that the potential compensation for them is small enough that their utility function is at least as linear as the plaintiffs or (b) turn the class-action lawsuits legal team into a corporation which must answer to many shareholders.

Proposal (a) has problems because it might require the number of lawyers to be comparable to the number of plaintiffs, which could be thousands or millions. Proposal (b) strikes many people as weird, and introduces other principal-agent problems, but it does have precedence:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/30/looking-to-make-a-pro...

Would love to hear an expert opinion on this.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#164

Post by nemo » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 3:10 PM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #149

defen wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with libertarianism is that it starts with a tiny set of axioms, and then attempts to derive how the world should be. Any deviations from that are then taken as evidence that the world is wrong, unjust, etc. In reality, humans are hierarchical social creatures with complex dynamics, and you kind of have to play by the rules that other people set for you. In this case, a group of people broke the rules and…

> In this case, a group of people broke the rules and some other people think they should be punished, and I think most of the people here have no problem with that. The percentage of people who agree with what I've asserted here has no bearing on the validity of my arguments. And attacking my argument for being libertarian is argumentum ad hominem. Shooting the messenger does not address the message.

"attacking my argument for being libertarian is argumentum ad hominem"

No. Saying that the framework you're basing an argument on is flawed isn't dismissing the argument because of a personal flaw of the person asserting something. It's saying that the core axioms/assumptions are flawed.

Maybe you over-identify with that ideology and are taking criticisms of the ideology personally since it feels personal, but it's not at all about you, it's about the ideas you're espousing.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#165

Post by Goronmon » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 3:18 PM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #140

rayiner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you distinguish force and fraud arbitrarily from collusion? Me bashing you over the head and taking your stuff is the ultimate freedom of action.

It's not arbitrary. Hiring agreements (collusion) do not involve force or fraud. Do you truly not distinguish between bashing someone over the head for my stuff from agreeing to exchange something for it? The latter is voluntary and the former is forced.

>Hiring agreements (collusion) do not involve force or fraud.

Hiring agreements are where an employer uses the power of their position (and those they are colluding with) to control their employees. I would argue this is just another form of 'force'. You don't need to physically harm someone to control them.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#166

Post by phaker » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 3:37 PM UTC

001sky wrote: post #124

phaker wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems taken out of context. In a [post] on his blog Horowitz describes a scenario in which a person currently employed at a company that is "important" to you comes in for an interview. The recommended course of action is to 1: block the hire, 2: inform said company about it. There are two things i just can't agree with at all: * The part about informing the current employer: about 50% of the time it will end with ru…

You are taking it out of context, though. BH is basically talking about an issue that could kill your startup. Whether or not you like that reality, there is a real risk that the other company will retaliate for something they see as an adverse breech of trust. Note that logic: the problem is not with the company ben is advising. The issue is at the third part company. If that company decides to "go nuclear" and seve…

The thing that irks me the most is not the practice itself. My problem is with everything else in that post.

Note that he has not described it as a morally ambiguous but sometimes unavoidable choice (like you did) but as the most righteous and noble option. That he's openly admitting he knows that it's illegal. Pay attention the sugar-sweet language of his parable and how its tone gets more colorful whenever the story takes a darker turn (from pov of the employee).

I mean, this entire thing is something out of a dilbert strip. I'm serious. This is something you'd expect Dilbert's CEO to write. The self deceit, the contrast between the language of "hurt feelings" vs the unstated reality of a person getting fired as a consequence and the stupidity of it all are mocked in hundred different Dilbert strips. Remember when this wage fixing story surfaced and the surprised comments that they were stupid enough to put it in email? If Mr Horowitz ever gets in similar trouble the paragraph i quoted above will make these troubles a lot worse.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#167

Post by jusben1369 » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 3:40 PM UTC

bkeroack wrote: post #69

The otherwise amazing book by Ben Horowitz (of Andreessen-Horowitz fame) called The Hard Thing About Hard Things has a chapter that basically lays out and encourages this type of illegal behavior (called "Is It Okay to Hire People from Your Friend's Company?"). It literally recommends that companies maintain a "do not hire" (aka "do not poach") list of other organizations from which HR is forbidden from recruiting. I…

I feel like you're selling it short here. He said "If you would be shocked and horrified if Company X hired several of your employees then you should not hire from them. This should be a very small list and require CEO sign off before happening" At the macro level what he's saying is you have to protect the overall health of your company. If one or two key hires from a competitor result in poisoning the inter company relationships then the negative outweighs the positive so don't do it. Or, at the very least, understand that your internal argument "well that employee was looking so they were lost anyways someone was going to get them" can create a much bigger problem for you down the road (if new employee X enjoys your company chances are she'll tell her friends at old company and HR will see inbound flow and create an unintended "raiding" scenario)

I think he's guilty of trying to overly engineer management here and don't agree but he does have a logic around a really narrow use case.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#168

Post by 001sky » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 4:52 PM UTC

phaker wrote: post #166

001sky wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are taking it out of context, though. BH is basically talking about an issue that could kill your startup. Whether or not you like that reality, there is a real risk that the other company will retaliate for something they see as an adverse breech of trust. Note that logic: the problem is not with the company ben is advising. The issue is at the third part company. If that company decides to "go nuclear" and seve…

The thing that irks me the most is not the practice itself. My problem is with everything else in that post. Note that he has not described it as a morally ambiguous but sometimes unavoidable choice (like you did) but as the most righteous and noble option. That he's openly admitting he knows that it's illegal. Pay attention the sugar-sweet language of his parable and how its tone gets more colorful whenever the stor…

There's plenty of scope to fairly critique the BH piece. He's not perfect or beyond taking a few shot across the bow on a controversial subject.

But the situation of apple and google colluding (ie, this linked article) IMHO is a ~different situation here than the subject of the BH piece.

1> Google and AAPL as of the time of the lawsuit were not small players (fighting for their lives). They were 'fat cats' essentially at the top of the food chain.

2> Their motivations seem inherently economic/greedy, and fundamentally anti-competitive. They were not even vaguely 'customer centric' or otherwise constructive (except at the most tenditious levels).

3> The defendents were self aware their actions were unethica/illegal, and in the context of (1) and (2), were actively taking steps to hide/bury/conspire/collude regarding the illegal activity.

So this type of context is not the same. Calling out the BH essay seems to add a layer of useful sophistication to the discussion here. Half the utility, tho, is understanding the difference.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#169

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 5:15 PM UTC

balls187 wrote: post #106

sgustard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no practical difference. If I hire Ben away from you, then protest "he came to us! we didn't poach him!" it matters not one bit to our now shattered relationship.

That's a great point, but seems like the CEO (or whatever principal is shattering the relationship) isn't being mature, nor thinking objectively.

And how many entry level recruiting employees or their immediate managers do you think even want to have this conversation with someone like Steve Jobs? No single candidate is going to be worth having to defend yourself to the CEO, whether it was unsolicited or not. Practically speaking, these people are going to be the untouchables.

Re: Judge rejects $324.5M settlement over Apple, Google hiring

#170

Post by nhjk » Sat, Aug 09, 2014, 6:59 PM UTC

dreamdu5t wrote: post #111

bkeroack wrote: post #69

The otherwise amazing book by Ben Horowitz (of Andreessen-Horowitz fame) called The Hard Thing About Hard Things has a chapter that basically lays out and encourages this type of illegal behavior (called "Is It Okay to Hire People from Your Friend's Company?"). It literally recommends that companies maintain a "do not hire" (aka "do not poach") list of other organizations from which HR is forbidden from recruiting. I…

Why is that disgusting? What's wrong with two people freely working together peacefully?

How about more than two people working together peacefully? How about many? And what if it was the employees instead of the employers? Maybe call it something like.. a union.