Live data from Hacker News

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

pando.com

31–40 of 96 posts

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

#31

Makes you wonder how bad wage-fixing is in the Valley don't it?

It's not an entirely fair comparison b/c in animation there are only a few options, while in software there are tons of midsized companies to choose from. If Apple, Google, M$ and Amazon decided they will all cap salaries at 90K, people would just go elsewhere b/c they have that option. I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening for the $250K+ jobs though

uhhh, you do realize this was part of the price fixing that included apple, google, and others right?

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

#32
post #8

I think the referenced bit on PandoDaily [1] has a bit more meat and seeing exactly what was said really drives home the point. From Ed Catmull's email to Steve Jobs: "...one of our department managers told me that she was offered a position as producer for Sony’s first CG film and is likely to accept. "The director of the movie is REDACTED [Jill Culton, ex-Lucasfilm and on Pixar-produced Monsters Inc—M.A.] who start…

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-poac…

What are the good intentions you think someone could hypothetically have?

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

#33
post #8

I think the referenced bit on PandoDaily [1] has a bit more meat and seeing exactly what was said really drives home the point. From Ed Catmull's email to Steve Jobs: "...one of our department managers told me that she was offered a position as producer for Sony’s first CG film and is likely to accept. "The director of the movie is REDACTED [Jill Culton, ex-Lucasfilm and on Pixar-produced Monsters Inc—M.A.] who start…

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-poac…

I can see what you are saying (however, I don't agree), but I think there is a bigger issue afoot: there are just too few companies that do any one thing, i.e., in a world of 7+ billion people, there are only a handful of companies that make feature-length CG films that the majority (of movie ticket buyers on the planet) watches. Because of this, those handful of companies are a virtual monopoly (cartel), and can, and do act in this bad way.

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

#34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prices arise through market forces: the competition of buyers for the same goods. If the largest purchasers of a given good agree not to compete, then prices are absolutely harmed. Understanding where staff is going is reasonable. Making it so that your staff doesn't have opportunities to go anywhere? That's a criminal conspiracy to rig a market.

As a tangent, one could also argue that there's nothing wrong with these compacts, and that market forces would make them untenable if there were truly a dearth of the needed specialized labor to complete the product. Again, that doesn't mean this practice was legal, but the illegality is non-obvious. It's not something that has to strike the average person as fundamentally immoral and socially harmful. If you cast i…

Do you agree that this is an accurate framing of the issue: a few rich and powerful people were in cahoots in opposition to the best interests of a bunch of far less rich and far less powerful people. If not, in what ways do you view it as being incorrect?

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

#35

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. :(

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.

We're too fast to discard people in this community. The linked article is heavily editorialized; it doesn't represent anything like even-handed coverage. We should give important figures in our community the benefit of the doubt, and learn how to respectfully disagree with one another. Even if something is illegal, it's not necessarily self-evidently immoral, and Catmull et al easily could've made anti-poaching pacts without the intention of suppressing employee wages.

We're only getting one side of the story here: the story of the DOJ, which has its own political interests. And in typical fashion with these highly sensationalized scandals, bullying and shame are deployed to force people into one camp or the other. People are discouraged from finding a middle ground, trying to empathize with both sides, etc. They're told, "X is bad, and Y did X! How can you still act in any reasonable manner toward Y? He must be banished!"

We need to be careful and we need to quit feeding our own to the wolves. We need to back off of our hair-trigger. So far, I know of no documentation that shows clear mens rea on the part of Catmull, and even if that is shown, it doesn't mean all of his contributions should be thrown out the door. That's very simple-minded, silly thinking.

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

#36
post #8

I think the referenced bit on PandoDaily [1] has a bit more meat and seeing exactly what was said really drives home the point. From Ed Catmull's email to Steve Jobs: "...one of our department managers told me that she was offered a position as producer for Sony’s first CG film and is likely to accept. "The director of the movie is REDACTED [Jill Culton, ex-Lucasfilm and on Pixar-produced Monsters Inc—M.A.] who start…

I'm an ex-animator. Reading the bit you excerpted didn't sound too bad at first - talking frankly about how someone burnt out is a pretty realistic view. Animation burns a lot of people out.

The "she isn't so bad that she'd hurt Sony" starts to sound bad. But it really gets bad after the part you excerpted:

We don’t have a no raid arrangement with Sony. We have set up one with ILM [Lucasfilm] and Dreamworks which has worked quite well. I probably should go down and meet with Sandy and Penney and Sony to reach some agreement. Our people are become [sic] really desirable and we need to nip this in the bud.

At which point I was like, dude, fuck you Ed.

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

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We're too fast to discard people in this community. The linked article is heavily editorialized; it doesn't represent anything like even-handed coverage. We should give important figures in our community the benefit of the doubt, and learn how to respectfully disagree with one another. Even if something is illegal, it's not necessarily self-evidently immoral, and Catmull et al easily could've made anti-poaching pacts…

You've had a handful of very insightful responses in a thread that is otherwise busy sharpening their pitchforks. Thanks for keeping it real. =)

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

#38
post #5

Totally not surprised: Back from ~2001-2004 when I was working on designing the Lucas Arts Letterman Digital Arts center in the Presidio, there was a certain CIO who wanted us to plan to build a studio in Asia. The reason was that "Asain animators are very cheap, and they aren't primadonna's like the overpaid ones here in the states." They saw animators as commodity COGs.

Which was not, and is not, an entirely invalid strategy.

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

#39

This is really sad, I greatly respect Ed Catmull for his work in graphics (z-buffer, catmull rom spline) and as a leader of extraordinarily consistently creative company. It just goes to show that even the best of us can succumb to greed.

Not excusing the behaviour at all as it is damaging to those working down the chain, but would it feel like greed to someone in that position? Their first thought would be that they're competing with another team and want to succeed. Their job is to further the success of their crew. I don't think consideration of staff wages and so on would even enter their minds unless they really stopped to evaluate what they were doing.

Could there be better business education in this regard?

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

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're too fast to discard people in this community. The linked article is heavily editorialized; it doesn't represent anything like even-handed coverage. We should give important figures in our community the benefit of the doubt, and learn how to respectfully disagree with one another. Even if something is illegal, it's not necessarily self-evidently immoral, and Catmull et al easily could've made anti-poaching pacts…

You've had a handful of very insightful responses in a thread that is otherwise busy sharpening their pitchforks. Thanks for keeping it real. =)

[deleted]
Post reply on HN