Am I the only one that loves the fact that it involves 64K programmers?
Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
11–20 of 144 posts
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#12Wouldn't a better idea than putting up a 'no poaching' kind of exit barrier be to give 'bonus every X period of time' kind of incentive, for employees you value and would like to retain?
I wonder if in the world of technology it makes sense to retain a demotivated employee?
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#13Case docket and documents here:
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#14how can i join this lawsuit?
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#15What can the villains in this drama use as power to force their illegal price fixing on reluctant companies? Just what you'd expect. "Mr. Jobs proposed a no-poaching deal to Edward T. Colligan, Palm’s chief executive. Mr. Colligan responded that such a deal would be unfair to employees as well as “likely illegal.” Mr. Jobs then threatened to unleash Apple’s patent lawyers on Palm." Yep. It's our badly broken patent s…
Interesting, since most of Palm's ideas on smartphones pre-dated the iPhone. No wonder we've changed the patent law to first to file, rather than first to invent.
I agree that the biggest liability to the economy at large of huge patent portfolios, little seen so far, is the ability of multiple incumbent corporations to collude and increase barriers to entry so they collectively are not threatened by innovation from upstarts.
That said, most of the time that Palm (and Handspring etc.) devices existed, they were PDAs, and the reason Palm beat out Apple's Newton is probably that they chose a subset of functionality that was more modest and probably more appropriate to the hardware of the time.
For example, while Newton's handwriting recognition was often unreliable, Palm devices asked its users to use a an arcane script that was easier to process. (Later lost in a patent-related issue, if I remember correctly)
Probably someone here was actually involved in the history of developing the devices, but as I remember it, the revolution of Palm pilots and other models was that they worked more smoothly, and they synced more reliably with your computer than any competitors. That involves a lot of good engineering and attention to detail, but it does not necessarily mean that there can't still be overlaps with patents held by companies which invented something earlier but with an implementation that didn't win over enough customers to survive.
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#16FYI, the exact definition of the class here is people who "worked as a salaried Technical Employee":
(a) for Apple from March 2005 through December 2009;
(b) for Adobe from May 2005 through December 2009;
(c) for Google from March 2005 through December 2009;
(d) for Intel from March 2005 through December 2009;
(e) for Intuit from June 2007 through December 2009;
(f) for Lucasfilm from January 2005 through December 2009; or
(g) for Pixar from January 2005 through December 2009.
Source: https://hightechemployeelawsuit.com/faqs/#q0
If you fall into this group and want to file a claim to be part of the settlement, you have until March 19th to do so (which you can do via the above website).
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#17how can i join this lawsuit?
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#18Wouldn't a better idea than putting up a 'no poaching' kind of exit barrier be to give 'bonus every X period of time' kind of incentive, for employees you value and would like to retain? I wonder if in the world of technology it makes sense to retain a demotivated employee?
> I wonder if in the world of technology it makes sense to retain a demotivated employee?
It absolutely does. The nature of tech work practically demands that every employee develop intimate knowledge of the very specific domain his work touches. It takes so long for new hires to become productive that in most cases the bottom line begs you to hold on to anyone who already has that intimate knowledge.
On the other hand, keeping a tech employee motivated often looks like a fool's game to management. If he's good at what he does, he doesn't see the world the same way as they do. If you're a growth-oriented engineer, it makes sense for you to bounce around different companies so as to maintain a sense of movement and there's not much your employer can do to "maintain your sense of movement" because it's a completely alien concept to them and often presents as "unnecessary shit that will cost time and money and be risky". Your career goals will often clash hard against your company's needs.
End result? This situation where top talent sinks collude to reduce their engineers' inherent negotiating advantage. This practice would be widespread, if only technology weren't such a wide field that any engineer with any desire at all for something better can very quickly find something. It only happened at the top level because that's the only circle in which there is no more upward mobility except among the same cloistered few.
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#19ONLY 6 COMMENTS? People should be virtually rioting for this.
Huh?
This isn't breaking news. It's just the latest development in an old and ongoing story.
Re: Engineers Allege Hiring Collusion in Silicon Valley
#20Can Software Engineers in California that weren't working at one of these companies get in on this class action? I mean even if you weren't at one of those companies its easy to see how suppressing wages at the largest companies would suppress wages for the entire industry.
Doubtful.
Out of curiosity, why do you want to?