I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies.
This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
It seems to me that Jobs orchestrated the whole ago affair, approaching key managers in various companies to set up this agreement. If Google gets the Evil tag for the decisions of some executives then surely Apple should be described a duck, perhaps more do since Jobs was Apple for all intents and purposes
Agreed. If I were larry or sergei I'd fire Schmidt. Now, that might mean I'd never run a company as large as google, but I'm okay with that. This incident removes Google from my list of tech giants I'd work for leaving it, well, empty.
Sad to see. I'm not surprised by the behaviour of Apple and others, but I thought better of Google than this.
you are assuming that Sergei and Larry were not aware of this pact. if the firm's VP is aware of this pact and fired an employee over this, i would say Sergei amd Larry are guilty as well. eithet of collusion or gross neglect.
This is a fantastic idea. I regularly get contacted by a recruiter from Google. Citing it as a reason you wouldn't feel comfortable working there is definitely a way to impact their thinking the next time they have to make a decision that negatively impacts the people working for them. Developers have a lot of power as sought after employees.
I'm tired of people bringing up 'don't do evil' EVERY time Google does something they dislike. New search results using personal targeting - EVIL! Anti-poaching agreement with Apple - EVIL! Closed down a bagel cafe next to my cubicle - EVIL!
Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more selective in its application?
This is turning into another version of the Godwin's law - whereby it only takes so long before Google is accused of being evil (by breaking the not-be-evil pledge).
Why not? Everyone has already diluted the meaning of the word "greed" successfully. Might as well start on "evil" now. :-)
But in all fairness, non-poaching agreements are not right. What if every tech company did this? You better hope you never have to leave that company after they hire you... Cause otherwise you'll have to consider a career change.
I agree in general, but this one (stifling competition by illegal methods) happens to be within my particular corporate evilness threshold. Unlike every previous evil Google has been accused of.
The problem with a word like evil is that it is so subjective. For some, obeying repressive laws in China would be the ultimate evil Google has committed. Using Google's own definition of evil, using the entire right side of the search results for self-advertising could be seen as evil.
However, ultimately I agree. Since evil is so subjective, very little information is provided by calling out Google in particular for being evil and thus hypocritical.
Condemning all the involved companies equally would make more sense.
(But I can't help feeling more disappointed Google was part of this).
Can we agree that limiting the career opportunities of your employees and firing recruiters who will not take part in this illegal practice is nothing like taking away bagels or personalizing search results? It's very close to the regular meaning of "evil", harming people for your own gain, illegally and without justification.
That's not how Google has defined "evil" in the past. Per Wikipedia:
> Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said he "wanted something that, once you put it in there, would be hard to take out," adding that the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent."
"Exploiting the users" doesn't fit your definition of "evil", but it appears to have fit Google's.
Occurs when individuals or groups embrace codes of conduct or standards of behavior for their own personal well being and social approval, yet violate those very same codes or standards to undermine the personal well being and social approval of others.
There's degrees of evil, but no shades. Evil was being done to people in this case.
(Disclaimer: Google employee, speaking for myself, not the company.)
The point of "Don't be evil" is to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and not less us take the easy way out. That, IMHO, is what made Google great in the first place.
I'm not going to comment on the specific case here - I don't know the facts - but the reason for "Don't be evil" is as much motivational as moral.
"Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more selective in its application?"
Using that version of "evil", makes it a completely empty marketing statement. Surely no company does "real" evil on purpose.
Actually, you'd be hard pressed to find a legit company that does "real" evil even by accident.
This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.