Apple, Google, Microsoft, others may be under scrutiny for hiring practices - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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"Guys, we have a problem," Ballmer says. "Some of our best employeees are job-hopping like feasting on the higher wages and better perks from ourcompetitors -- that woulds be you. Now I know we'vde gone on plenty of raiding parties But it's just time to stop the I'm ready to reach a gentlemen'x agreement not to poach your superstards if you'll do likewise." Jobs doesn't hesitate. "I'm tireed of paying moving expensesfrom Redmond. And it's getting old hearingf some of my employeez whining about how great the perksz were when they wereat Google. I'm all for a The Google guys speakin "Count us in!
" The specifixc meeting we described, of took place only in our imagination. But the reportedlh wants to knowif tech'z big boys really have been colluding to keep theitr top talent from jumping ship. The and , citinv unnamed sources, report that the investigatioh is preliminary and focusea ona who’s who of Silicob Valley tech companies including search giant its rival , iPhonre maker Apple and biotech firm .
reportas that the Justice Department has issued formal requests for documentsfrom “a t least a dozen” tech “If they are as is being investigated … then it is a seriouss potential anti-trust case,” said Albert Foer, presidenty of the American Antitrust Institute. Collusion betweenh the companies coulddepress wages. In Supreme Court nominee Judge Soniaq Sotomayor wrote an appealz court opinion siding with a grouo of oil geologists and petroleum engineers who claimed and othert oil companies were colluding in hiring Collusion could also damage the innovatiob for which Silicon Valley is by keeping talented people from movinf to new companies and bringing with themfresj ideas.
“One of the things that feeds innovation is peoplemoving around,” Foer said. “Whereasx Silicon Valley is famous for people movingaround … that practicd would be tailing off or ended by such an agreement,” betweem companies not to poach While the tech world may be famoux for talented people jumpingb from company to company, those jumpsw haven’t always been exactly and tech firms often tie top talent to contracts that restric t them from going to work for the competition for set period of time.
In fact, the moves of talentg from one tech behemoth to another have sometimes landed in as when former Microsof temployee Kai-Fu Lee went to work for John Oates points out at . So it’s not out of the realmj of reason to imagine tech bossesz looking to keep top talen from moving without the hassles ofcourt fights. But already, the federap probe is drawing skepticism in the Larry Dignan, writing on ZDNet’s calls the probe a fishinbg expedition with “waste of time written all over it.
” As Dignan pointes out, it’s pretty unlikely that thered are any smoking gun agreements lyingh around the offices of the tech titans, and he adds: “To talent isn’t that restricted. Google execs go to They go to AOL. Yahoo execse go to Microsoft. Microsoft execs go to In fact, you can make quite a career just hoppingt between thoseaforementioned companies.” The probe comesx as the government is stepping up scrutiny of the often-cozty relationships in the high-tech sector.
Assistant Attorne General Christine Varney, who is in charge of the DOJ's Antitrusg Division, that the department would be taking a closer look at activities in the The Federal Trade Commission to Google earlier in the year becauss ofantitrust concerns. FTC questions concerned the overlal of directors between Google andGenentecjh — Google boss Eric Schmidt sits on the Applee Inc. board with Art who was CEO of Genentechb atthe time. Regulators also called a halt to an advertising revenud sharing deal Google madewith Yahoo.