> If I read it correctly then they are not holding wages down as such, but are trying to avoid employee poaching.

Well then you are not reading it correctly. What does it say?

>> Google is the talk of the valley because we are driving salaries up across the board

Schmidt says as plain as day, in e-mails that escaped his admitted attempts to remove a paper trail, that this is about holding down wages. He says it as plain as you can say it. I can read this, and the other HN readers can read this in black and white. That people like you feel the need to deny this happened when they have been caught red-handed says more about you then it does about what happened.

I'm not taking the route of personal insults as I believe this type of comments should not be in HN in first place.

Yes, I read it very well. Schmidt indeed mentioned holding the wages down, BUT from the context it's clear they mean those who are targets of employee poaching. And that's certainly not everyone - quite the opposite, only exceptional individuals or strategy hires.

Then again, policy means you can't, like, make more than your boss or anything like that.

This is true and of course it's hard to quantify how much wage impact this had on the numbers. But since the companies' explicit goal in these poaching rules was to keep salaries in check ("we are driving up salaries across the board"), I think it's safe to say it was substantial. Poaching usually requires giving the poachy a raise.

Switch tech companies a couple times. Note what happens to your salary.

Hint: It doesn't go down.