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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

Apple doesn't need to feign interest to hire away employees, it doesn't need to put itself in any kind of "position".

It literally just has to create job openings and have its recruiters reach out the employees with attractive offers.

And there's nothing dishonest about that whatsoever. As I mentioned in another comment, Masimo had revenue of $1.24 billion last year. They're not a tiny mom and pop company. It's their job to pay their talent enough, and treat them well enough, so that they stay. If they fail to do so, then that's on them.

(And of course, companies undervalue their employees all the time. It's why the best way to progress in your career is often to be constantly switching companies, because another company will pay you what you're worth when your present company refuses.)

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They don't know who specifically to reach out to in many cases. The alleged dishonest behavior is feigning interest in acquiring a potential competitor in order to gain information about the identities of the engineering team that works there.

Okay, but it did feign interest to get awareness of the employees to poach. Totally agree, employees have autonomy in that sense, but we are just judging the actions of Apple not the mortality of employment.

If it were just as you said, not a big deal. Happens all the time. But it wasn't, they were sneaky and disingenuous. Bad behavior deserves criticism. If I invited someone to dinner just to figure out if I should persue their wife, their wife has autonomy and what happens after is between the three parties. But the dinner was a sham, and you would be right to feel betrayed. Perhaps not a perfect analogy.

Apple is walking antitrust case.

Apple should know better than to use its weight to tear the flesh off of small players in new markets. This isn't innovation - this is pouring unrelated economic gains from one economy into a completely different market segment. It's wholly and utterly unfair.

A watch company should not be a movie studio.

A movie studio should not be a grocery store.

A search engine paying for 100% placement should not also be a music platform, movie platform, thermostat vendor, cloud vendor, ...

This is all levels of fucked.

The government needs to break these obese mafia companies apart. It'll be better for competition and the consumer.

Fair competition would help more rewards flow directly to innovators. Instead, these Megatech companies staffed with their reams of PMs grow like a blob [1, 2] into anything that pops up on their radar.

[1] actually a great analogy for these companies; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blob_(1988_film)

> A watch company should not be a movie studio.

> A movie studio should not be a grocery store.

> A search engine paying for 100% placement should not also be a music platform, movie platform, thermostat vendor, cloud vendor, ...

Then what's the lawful distance between goods and services that company should be able to offer?

I get the position that big is bad, and I don't entirely disagree with that, but selling watches offers no unfair benefit to apple in the movie studio business, and vice versa. It's not like they're tying one good to another, or leveraging market power in one to gain market power in the other.

So if we want to say that you can't run a company that makes consumer electronic devices and a movie studio (see also, Sony, Amazon), then what's the limit?

Should a company that makes motorcycles be allowed to sell, say, fine stringed instruments (Yamaha)?

What about a company that makes industrial adhesives? Should they be allowed to also sell office supplies (3M)?

> It's not like they're tying one good to another, or leveraging market power in one to gain market power in the other.

That's absolutely what's happening!

> So if we want to say that you can't run a company that makes consumer electronic devices and a movie studio (see also, Sony, Amazon), then what's the limit?

There are a lot of possible litmus tests for this.

Is the company using the new market to put eyeballs on its existing product offering, making itself stronger at the expense of players in the new market (Amazon Prime Movies, Apple TV)?

Is the company undercutting the costs of existing incumbents by offering products and services below cost (Apple TV)?

Is the company hiring away talent from the other market or building exclusive partnerships (Apple Automotive)?

Do consumer choices get made due to benefits of bundling with an unrelated market segment (Amazon Prime)?

Does it help the company streamline delivery of their platform into the new market and collect taxes or information in a new way (Apple and Google Pay)?

> Apple should know better than to use its weight to tear the flesh off of small players in new markets

...but that's where the profits are. Apple, like Walmart and big-hair rock bands back in the day, thrive by throwing its weight around and taking advantage of small-time suppliers (or groupies) who'd do anything to get a shot at the bug leagues - including shouldering disproportionate risks for an illusory union used to string them along.

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