Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to lower tech engineers' wages

[hewhoneverwas]

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

 

 

 

In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming, Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators.

Later that year, Schmidt instructed his Sr VP for Business Operation Shona Brown to keep the pact a secret and only share information “verbally, since I don’t want to create a paper trail over which we can be sued later."

 

Shortly after sealing the pact with Google, Jobs strong-armed Adobe into joining after he complained to CEO Bruce Chizen that Adobe was recruiting Apple’s employees. Chizen sheepishly responded that he thought only a small class of employees were off-limits:

I thought we agreed not to recruit any senior level employees…. I would propose we keep it that way. Open to discuss. It would be good to agree.

Jobs responded by threatening war:

OK, I’ll tell our recruiters they are free to approach any Adobe employee who is not a Sr. Director or VP. Am I understanding your position correctly?

Adobe’s Chizen immediately backed down:

I’d rather agree NOT to actively solicit any employee from either company…..If you are in agreement, I will let my folks know.

 

[Blue fellow]

"Don't be evil"

[Whiskers]

If there's no paper trail, how can we believe it to be true?

[Imabigmac]

Ohh, scandalous! Love that picture.

[AlexGoesHigh]

i don't find this surprising TBH 

[TheSLSAMG]

If there's no paper trail, how can we believe it to be true?

It's pretty much this.

[Ertman]

Wasn't this reported on years ago, except under the guise of not stealing employees from eachother?

So.... Old news?

[Yoinkerman]

That's what I thought as well.

 

It's still collusion and anti-competitive even if it's done in backrooms without a paper trail.

 

Wasn't this reported on years ago, except under the guise of not stealing employees from eachother?

So.... Old news?

[LOST TALE]

Monopolising is illegal in the US I think. Monsanto got stuck on it, and got almost no fines. But the guy who found them got 9 years in prison. Much moneys, very ..Wow

in this case, its salaries instead of product prices.

[Ertman]

That's what I thought as well.

It's still collusion and anti-competitive even if it's done in backrooms without a paper trail.

Yep, with or without a paper trail.

They were being investigated for it too I believe.

[hewhoneverwas]

If there's no paper trail, how can we believe it to be true?

 

From the article:

 

 

These secret conversations and agreements between some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley were first exposed in a Department of Justice antitrust investigation launched by the Obama Administration in 2010. That DOJ suit became the basis of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of over 100,000 tech employees whose wages were artificially lowered — an estimated $9 billion effectively stolen by the high-flying companies from their workers to pad company earnings — in the second half of the 2000s.

 

Bill Campbell (Chairman of Intuit Board of Directors, Co-Lead Director of Apple, and advisor to Google) was also involved in the Google-Intel agreement, as reflected in an email exchange from 2006 in which Bill Campbell agreed with Jonathan Rosenberg (Google Advisor to the Office of CEO and former Senior Vice President of Product Management) that Google should call [intel CEO] Paul Otellini before making an offer to an Intel employee, regardless of whether the Intel employee first approached Google.

 

Court documents show it was Bill Campbell who first brought together Jobs and Schmidt to form the core of the Silicon Valley wage-theft pact. And Campbell’s name appears as the early conduit bringing Intel into the pact with Google.

 

You can read the court documents at the bottom of the page.

[Whiskers]

From the article:

 

 

You can read the court documents at the bottom of the page.

 

I have neither the time nor care to read through 86 pages of legal mumbo jumbo.

 

I find it difficult to believe is all. If they left no papertrail, I fail to see how there can be proof of it happening - if there is no proof, how can we know that it happened?

[hewhoneverwas]

If they left no papertrail, I fail to see how there can be proof of it happening - if there is no proof, how can we know that it happened?

 

But it says there have been e-mails presented as evidence right there...

 

Besides, it was only Schmidt who gave the word not leave a paper trail. All that does is it removes a single form of evidence pinned against one company out of several others involved in this case. You're still left with a bunch of testimonies, records, e-mail exchanges, etc.

[Whiskers]

But it says there have been e-mails presented as evidence right there...

 

Besides, it was only Schmidt who gave the word not leave a paper trail. All that does is it removes a single form of evidence pinned against one company out of several others involved in this case. You're still left with a bunch of testimonies, records, e-mail exchanges, etc.

 

Which can be faked, and has been in the past throughout many other court cases.

 

Until there is non-circumstantial and verifiable evidence, I can't believe it.