Steve Jobs wasn't even okay with Google hiring former Apple engineers

&gt;Adding a bit more context to these emails, a 2008 article from TechCrunch details that Hullot and other members from Apple&#x27;s Paris engineering team were actually given pink slips.<p>So he was not okay with Google hiring former engineers Apple <i>let go.</i> Unbelieveable.

I wonder if in the ongoing process of this &#x27;scandal&#x27; any numbers will appear on how many people were rejected because of such agreements. This is such an unfair move towards people who have great talent who might just be better off working for Google instead of Apple or vice versa because of their mindset. I hope for high penalties for the involved companies.

What I&#x27;m mostly learning though this saga is that an uncomfortable number of SV executives are feckless weaklings in the face of a sociopath like Jobs.

Don&#x27;t forget, by the way, that when Steve Jobs left Apple to found a new company in a line of business perilously close to Apple&#x27;s he took a number of important Apple people with him, despite giving a misleading promise not to do so.

There are two things here that are new. Firstly it&#x27;s got an international angle, and laws around the world do definitely differ on things like poaching and anti-competes.<p>More interesting is Alan Eustace&#x27;s comment about the value of the Apple relationship to Google, in 2006. Were they really that close? I struggle to think of why they viewed their relationship as of particular strategic importance at that time.

I think these poaching agreements had more to do with IP than salary escalation. The interaction here makes it clear - the employees were no longer with apple, hence there was no hypothetical counter offer to give.

The tone that Eustace, a Senior Vice President at Google, uses with Jobs is beyond deferential.<p>&quot;Based on your strong preference that we not hire the ex-Apple engineers, Jean-Marie and I decided not to open a Google Paris engineering center. I appreciate your input into this decision, and your continued support of the Google&#x2F;Apple partnership.&quot;<p>I&#x27;d be surprised to see one of my peers use this kind of tone with the President of the United States.

Wow Google, as if your embarrassment couldn&#x27;t go any further on this story.<p>Not to get dramatic, but we&#x27;re talking about dignity, integrity, the moral center to understand the difference between right and wrong. Didn&#x27;t <i>anyone</i> at Google have the ability to get beyond groupthink?<p>All that money and resources and control and influence, and the only thing that mattered to everyone was....getting more of it. How sad for all of you in those companies to act like this and affect the livelihood of others, all in the name of a few bucks.<p>Funny thing about money; it&#x27;s so damn expensive.

&gt; This is such an unfair move<p>Which unfair move?<p>Google could have gone ahead and hire these people anyway. Nothing prevented them from doing so except their decision to not risk angering Jobs.

Sounds to me like Steve was a serious control freak.. Article after article, it&#x27;s the same thing... Don&#x27;t get me wrong. The stuff his company did was cool, but cheesh..

As a CEO, this situation is more than complex. There are times when you are working with &#x27;partners&#x27; or anyone in the same industry. And you can not avoid collaborating with each other. Apple needed Google, as much as Google needed Apple.<p>However then there is the ugly part, since your partners are in the same industry, they are ultimately your competitors too. It&#x27;s not about laws or specific rules. It&#x27;s about human nature, you will be less pissed if someone hooked up with your Ex, but things could be entirely different, if your Ex is hooked up with one of your friends.<p>This is perhaps not a smart analogy, but it&#x27;s somewhat relevant, remember a time when Eric was on Apple board, and then they went on to launch Android? It certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth and incites a war.

I&#x27;d be surprised if any CEO was OK with former employees going to an arch competitor.

Can someone speculate as to why Jobs would have been opposed to this? The only thing I can come up with is that Jobs was trying to minimize the amount of times that &quot;I know a guy at Google&quot; was spoken in the halls of Apple.

I hope Apple and Google would get penalized aside from paying penalties.<p>Both companies have plenty of cash so even a $100 million penalty won&#x27;t make a difference.<p>I don&#x27;t have any idea though on what they could be penalized with aside from money.

Steve Jobs wasn&#x27;t okay with Google hiring anyone who ever applied for a job at Apple. Or really, even people with last names that began with &quot;Mac&quot;

Worse than the anti-competitive angle of this story is the idea that Jobs prevented engineers, with families, from obtaining jobs. That&#x27;s just inexcusable.

Don&#x27;t know a clever way to say this but.. Bureaucracy sucks. List a million reasons why it impedes a happier life.

Do no evil?

Just when I thought Jobs couldn&#x27;t be a bigger scumbag! Someone dig up his grave and make an example of him in front of all of Silicon Valley. It&#x27;s what he would have done.