Emails, court docs show how Sony stood up to Steve Jobs’ and Pixar’s wage-fixing

This is so disappointing. I've always really respected Catmull. He has given many presentations and speeches with incredible value.

His actions here are, I think, by definition evil. Decisions made with selfish intent with willful disregard to the negative consequences it has on others. That's my definition at least, everyone has their own. How utterly disappointing. :(

If you missed the countless articles on HN about the anti-poaching collusion case in which Apple, Google and other companies were implicated, this article provides a good overview:

Apple and Google’s wage-fixing involved dozens more companies, over 1M employees

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7449737

Anyone know how much these types of employee at Pixar are paid?

Since they do such specialized work, and since there is a very limited supply of such talent (i.e. it takes many years of experience you can't get in school), it would be surprising if their salaries weren't extremely high.

When I worked at EA, we had technical artists come over from DreamWorks, Pixar, etc. But I don't know how much they were paid.

I don't see anything exceptionally dirty about that mail. I went to the article to get the full context and still don't see it. The intimation of the article and, in fact, everything I've heard on this stuff, is that all anti-poaching agreements exist solely for the purpose of depressing employee wages, but I don't think that holds true. It may be technically illegal, but the potential moral implications of a no-poaching agreement are non-obvious and I think decent people can forge these agreements with good intentions.

Reporting on staff movements isn't necessarily selfish or evil. It's important to understand what's going on with your workforce: know where they're going and why. Catmull's email seems totally fine to me -- he's reporting on a poached employee to Jobs, explaining that Sony is aggressively pursuing Pixar personnel, and that they were already taking a certain employee of moderate value particularly. Catmull reiterates that there is no extant no-poach arrangement with Sony. That's useful information for a CEO, right?

I think some people are trying to make this a bigger deal than it has to be. If there's an email that shows direct evidence of conspiracy to fix wages, I'd be interested in seeing that, but I don't think the no-poach agreements need to be assumed to have been a bad-faith arrangement.

EDIT: Woops, HN has decided I'm not allowed to talk anymore. Usually when this happens it lasts a pretty long time (at least several hours, I suspect something like 12-24). I'd like to continue discussing with you all, but that'll have to be it for me in this thread.

Agreed. I'm reading his book Creativity Inc. right now, and it's chock-full of goodness. Except that now, I question the very motives and integrity of the author, so the whole thing is completely suspect, and I might just not continue reading.