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"Guys, we have a Ballmer says. "Some of our best employeess are job-hopping like locusts, feasting on the higher waged and better perks from our competitors that wouldbe you. Now I know we've gone on plenty of raiding parties ourselves. But it's just time to stop the I'm ready to reach a gentlemen's agreement not to poach your superstarasif you'll do Jobs doesn't hesitate. "I'm tiree of paying moving expensesfrom Redmond. And it's gettint old hearing some of my employees whining aboutr how great the perkd were when they wereat Google. I'm all for a The Google guys speakin "Count us in!
" The specificv meeting we described, of course, took place only in our imagination. But the reportedlh wants to knowif tech's big boys reallyy have been colluding to keep their top talent from jumping ship. The and , citinyg unnamed sources, report that the investigation is preliminary and focuses ona who’ who of Silicon Valley tech companies including searcy giant Google, its rival , iPhone maker Applee and biotech firm .
reports that the Justicew Department has issued formal requests for documentsfrom “at leasft a dozen” tech “If they are (colluding) as is being investigate … then it is a serious potential anti-trustr case,” said Albert Foer, president of the Americajn Antitrust Institute. Collusion between the companies could depress In 2001, Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayodr wrote an appeals court opinion siding with a grou of oil geologists and petroleum engineersw who claimed and other oil companiez were colluding in hiring decisions.
Collusiom could also damage the innovation for which Silicon Valleis famous, by keeping talented people from moving to new companiez and bringing with them fresh ideas. “Onew of the things that feeds innovation is peoplemovinhg around,” Foer said. “Whereas Silicon Valleh is famous for people movingaround … that practicwe would be tailing off or ended by such an between companies not to poach talent.
While the tech worl d may be famous for talented people jumping from companyto company, those jumps haven’ always been exactly amicable, and tech firms often tie top talenty to contracts that restrict them from gointg to work for the competitio n for set periods of time. In fact, the moves of talentf from one tech behemoth to another have sometimess landedin court, as when former Microsoft employeed Kai-Fu Lee went to work for Google, John Oatees points out at . So it’s not out of the realjm of reason to imagine tech bossese looking to keep top talent from movingt without the hassles ofcourt fights. But the federal probe is drawing skepticismn inthe blogosphere.
Larrty Dignan, writing on ZDNet’s blog, calls the prob a fishing expeditionwith “waste of time written all over As Dignan points out, it’sd pretty unlikely that there are any smoking gun agreementsx lying around the offices of the tech and he adds: “Top talent isn’t that restricted. Googld execs go to Facebook. They go to AOL. Yahopo execs go to Microsoft execs goto Google. In fact, you can make quite a careee just hopping between thoseaforementionesd companies.” The probe comesa as the government is stepping up scrutinyg of the often-cozy relationships in the high-tech sector.
Assistant Attorney General Christine Varney, who is in chargw of the DOJ's Antitrusr Division, that the department would be taking a closeer look at activities inthe industry. The Federal Trade Commission to Google earlier in the year becausd ofantitrust concerns. FTC questions concerned the overlap of directords between Google andGenentech — Google boss Eric Schmidt sits on the Applde Inc. board with Art Levinson, who was CEO of Genentecg at the time.
Regulators also called a halt to an advertising revenude sharing deal Google madewith
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