Comment by phaker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phaker | Hacker News Reader

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Seems taken out of context.

In a [post] on his blog Horowitz describes a scenario in which a person currently employed at a company that is "important" to you comes in for an interview. The recommended course of action is to 1: block the hire, 2: inform said company about it. There are two things i just can't agree with at all:

* The part about informing the current employer: about 50% of the time it will end with ruining the next few weeks or months of his/her life. I.e. getting them fired, with ruined prospects of getting the job they took the risk for. Note that at e.g. apple the standard procedure when they find out that an employee is looking for a job is to escort them out of the building right then and there.

* Note it's not about "poaching", he explains thoroughly that it applies to people who ask for an interview on their own accord too.

If you don't want to read the whole thing, at least read this gem:

It is important to note that just about all of these kinds of policies violate the Right to Work laws in California. Specifically, if you block a hire based on this kind of policy and the employee loses their job and cannot find work, your company is liable for his wages. As a result, the business relationship with the other company must be extremely important for you to employ any kind of “hands off” policy.

said blog [post]: http://www.bhorowitz.com/is_it_ok_to_hire_people_from_your_f...

> Note that at e.g. apple the standard procedure when they find out that an employee is looking for a job is to escort them out of the building right then and there.

Do you have a source on this? I couldn't find anything with a quick Google search.

You are taking it out of context, though. BH is basically talking about an issue that could kill your startup. Whether or not you like that reality, there is a real risk that the other company will retaliate for something they see as an adverse breech of trust.

Note that logic: the problem is not with the company ben is advising. The issue is at the third part company. If that company decides to "go nuclear" and sever all ties because you poached/goaded or otherwise got involved in their "interal politics" (note: this is not a per-se issue of math/economics/money), bad things might happen to your firm.

CEOs of startups have a fiduciary duty to avoid "bad things", and even that choice is a catch-22 (ie, two bad things...) you pick the worst-bad one. And that is what he is saying.

In other words, he's talking about something that is a real-world problem. If you want to vent out about the issue, it really sits with the third part company. They are typically the one with all the power in the situation.

Example:

Startup A had 80% of its business tied to a single company, BigCo B. Like it or not, the CEO of startup A needs to avoid a situation where the CEO of BigCo B comes to the conclusion that he won't do business with A becaus of Politics (note: not economics).

Whether or not poaching is politically sensitive (or offensive) and/or warrants this type of "nuclear" response, is a function of many thing. But none of that is BH's responsibility in the larger world.

This dynamics is something that has played out for millenia from kings and queens and royal courts to how the predisent and Y combinator select their staff and senior leadership.

At a certain level of the game, its all about trust. And polticial power is essentially a combination of trust and goodwill. And its easy to disolve and can reak havok on any company of any size when systemically undermined. So you need to pay attention to it.

In other words, this is a much bigger issue. The tack of trying to shoot or lynch the messenger is sort of misplaced. Because the startup is the employer and may have a power asymmetry with a potential hire; but that startup is in itself subject to potential power assymetries at much higher levels.

(This goes for pissing off BOD members, VCs, and Key clients alike...maybe it suck/isn't fair...etc... but the reality is you need to pick your battes as a small company. And picking fights with the consituents you need to help you build your biz is ~dysfunctional and needs to be understood as such.)

The thing that irks me the most is not the practice itself. My problem is with everything else in that post.

Note that he has not described it as a morally ambiguous but sometimes unavoidable choice (like you did) but as the most righteous and noble option. That he's openly admitting he knows that it's illegal. Pay attention the sugar-sweet language of his parable and how its tone gets more colorful whenever the story takes a darker turn (from pov of the employee).

I mean, this entire thing is something out of a dilbert strip. I'm serious. This is something you'd expect Dilbert's CEO to write. The self deceit, the contrast between the language of "hurt feelings" vs the unstated reality of a person getting fired as a consequence and the stupidity of it all are mocked in hundred different Dilbert strips. Remember when this wage fixing story surfaced and the surprised comments that they were stupid enough to put it in email? If Mr Horowitz ever gets in similar trouble the paragraph i quoted above will make these troubles a lot worse.

There's plenty of scope to fairly critique the BH piece. He's not perfect or beyond taking a few shot across the bow on a controversial subject.

But the situation of apple and google colluding (ie, this linked article) IMHO is a ~different situation here than the subject of the BH piece.

1> Google and AAPL as of the time of the lawsuit were not small players (fighting for their lives). They were 'fat cats' essentially at the top of the food chain.

2> Their motivations seem inherently economic/greedy, and fundamentally anti-competitive. They were not even vaguely 'customer centric' or otherwise constructive (except at the most tenditious levels).

3> The defendents were self aware their actions were unethica/illegal, and in the context of (1) and (2), were actively taking steps to hide/bury/conspire/collude regarding the illegal activity.

So this type of context is not the same. Calling out the BH essay seems to add a layer of useful sophistication to the discussion here. Half the utility, tho, is understanding the difference.

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