It would be an interesting conversation to try and understand why/how are they better. Is it the sensors? The software? The lenses? In which conditions?

In that specific case I think they probably had better ideas than Google?

They were stealing the talent.

You mean, paying them well?

You could make the case that "stealing" talent is in terms of targeting hiring people where the training and research costs were footed by someone else.

Then again, as you pointed out, you could also make the case that they weren't properly compensated.

In Moscow, major Asian companies like Samsung, Huawei, LG all have research centers where they hire some of the best science students from top universities, in particular by organizing joint study programs. This seems to be a widespread practice around the world for them, and actually profitable for both students and universities.

Interesting observation about Moscow having a lot of research labs. I never thought to wonder why Moscow had so many but this is an interesting point. What do you mean by join study program? Can you explain? Also, is there anything that stops top talent from moving to Silicon Valley (or some place else?) after they finish school?

Many top universities here are not like self-contained research universities of the West — they mostly deal with education, and research is conducted at non-educational academic institutions. So, for their Masters work, and maybe earlier, students do research in various organizations that have contracts with university. These are either academic institutions or commercial research departments or tech companies like Yandex.

As for SV, it’s not that simple, it seems — most emigrants that I know either got job at something like Swiss Google after building a solid resume here or got into some academic program (PhD or postdoc) abroad.

>Also, is there anything that stops top talent from moving to Silicon Valley

Besides insane US visa policies?

Sometimes, paying people well goes hand in hand with opportunities for growth. The "bamboo ceiling," which is similar to the "glass ceiling" is a source of frustration for some technical employees who find themselves stuck.

Diversity and inclusion programs at most companies tend to focus on every demographic bias except for the bamboo ceiling.

You can't steal people. You can kidnap people and you can hire people. Maybe if you kill them you can steal the body? You sound like an anti-piracy advertisement. "Piracy is theft".

Just to nitpick, because we are on HN: I remember a story of a cartel in Latin America kidnapping networking experts to force them to develop their technology stack. That may count as "stealing" talents?

Not sure if that's what I remember, but here is a Wired article: https://www.wired.com/2012/11/zeta-radio/

Edit: of course I'm not implying that Huawei does this...

"steal" is other way of saying "hired"

because it feels kinda differently when you want to buy $competitor's top people

You can only "buy" top people if your offer is better though. I see nothing wrong in people switching jobs for a better offer. Calling it stealing makes it sound as A Bad Thing while in truth it is a good thing for the person getting hired. If businesses shared the profits equally this wouldn't happen but then we are not in capitalism anymore..