Just gonna throw my perspective out there, since I was a firsthand witness to this stuff.
I started at Google in 2005 as an ordinary software engineer, and I've not yet left them. Back then, Google recruiters were constantly bugging employees for referrals. But this "no poaching" thing wasn't some weird dirty secret among execs -- it was just sort of a common knowledge thing, and nobody seemed to think it was a big deal. "Oh, we have a gentleman's agreement with Apple not to poach them and vice versa -- so give us the names of your friends to reach out to, but not if they already work at Apple."
AFAICT, the reason I (and my coworkers) never thought of this policy as illegal is probably for two reasons:
1. Hey, poaching back and forth would create a lot of disruption and churn and mess up both companies' ability to get things done. Let's not start a pointless war.
2. We, as programmers, are ridiculously overpaid already. How could anyone possibly be "taking advantage" of us at these salaries? The notion seemed as absurd as a Programmer's Labor Union!
Again, the idea was not to poach, not to avoid hiring. If somebody from Apple applied for a Google job of their own will, that was fine.
In hindsight, I /guess/ I understand how this looks like evil collusion to keep salaries down... but really it seemed like common sense and civility at the time. At least that's how it was sold to us. It was sort of like the nuclear policy of Mutually Assured Destruction: "the only way to win is not to play." It's the same attitude that still explains why giant companies don't (typically) begin patent wars -- there's no point if everyone ends up destroying each other.
I worked there as well. The problem is that the kind of selective agreements are a form of market collusion that is enshrined as illegal in anti trust law. So even if it "makes sense" it also infers with market dynamics.
Finally, the notion that this was an individual thing and there were no class impact is not so. The reason is that these companies have "brackets" for pay. If you are at a certain job title you make $X - $Y and corresponding amounts for options etc. These companies are also very interested in equity among the employees so if prices start rising they will have to draw up the low end affecting prices across the board.
To the doubters, I point to the Facebook/google incident. Google was forced to give across the board 10% raises to every single employee because Facebook wasn't willing to sign anti poaching agreements.
It's interesting that arguments essentially from das kapital are being raised here. Wages vs productivity. Intrinsic ideas of fairness are universal (and possible primate, studies showed).
> We, as programmers, are ridiculously overpaid already. How could anyone possibly be "taking advantage" of us at these salaries?
Overpaid by what metric? Compared to society at large, you make a lot money, yes, but you're also contributing significantly to one of the most profitable companies in the world. Google has a profit of about a million dollars per employee per year; why aren't you capturing more of that? [1]
If you're not taking that money home, someone else is. What do you bet those people are the ones telling you this is all in the name of civility?
You're right that my source was the wrong thing for that (I wasn't careful enough in my quick search). But profit per employee per year is much closer to a million than 250K. Here's the source I should have used :http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyeit.php?code=GOO...
Note the numbers are quarterly, so that comes out to $900K. I was off a bit, so point taken, but my original point mostly stands, I think.
Just because you and 'some' of your coworkers thought programmers are 'ridiculously overpaid' doesn't mean all of your coworkers felt that way. As such, the suit is just that, for those other employees that felt gipped.
The way your leverage mutually assured destruction here is just sugar coating the very nature of collusion like the telecomm companies. When no one lowers prices and compete fairly, the customers (and by analogy the programmers) loses out. So it doesn't just /look/ like evil collusion because it /is/ evil collusion.
I just wanted to clarify to anyone reading this passage here.
"Google is the talk of the valley because we are driving salaries up across the board." "I would prefer Omid do it verbally since I don't want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later"
It's evil collusion to keep salaries down.
Not discussing your compensation is another example of something we've been sold on as "common sense and civility" though it's illegal to restrict it.
I started at Google in 2005 as an ordinary software engineer, and I've not yet left them. Back then, Google recruiters were constantly bugging employees for referrals. But this "no poaching" thing wasn't some weird dirty secret among execs -- it was just sort of a common knowledge thing, and nobody seemed to think it was a big deal. "Oh, we have a gentleman's agreement with Apple not to poach them and vice versa -- so give us the names of your friends to reach out to, but not if they already work at Apple."
AFAICT, the reason I (and my coworkers) never thought of this policy as illegal is probably for two reasons:
1. Hey, poaching back and forth would create a lot of disruption and churn and mess up both companies' ability to get things done. Let's not start a pointless war.
2. We, as programmers, are ridiculously overpaid already. How could anyone possibly be "taking advantage" of us at these salaries? The notion seemed as absurd as a Programmer's Labor Union!
Again, the idea was not to poach, not to avoid hiring. If somebody from Apple applied for a Google job of their own will, that was fine.
In hindsight, I /guess/ I understand how this looks like evil collusion to keep salaries down... but really it seemed like common sense and civility at the time. At least that's how it was sold to us. It was sort of like the nuclear policy of Mutually Assured Destruction: "the only way to win is not to play." It's the same attitude that still explains why giant companies don't (typically) begin patent wars -- there's no point if everyone ends up destroying each other.