Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google

Re:Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google by tdaltonc on Monday March 24, 2014 @09:57PM (#7463258)

I'm not sure that the oligopoly really captured that much money. Oligopolies only work when nearly everyone is in on it. If you have too many 'cheaters' than the cartel can't control the price.

There were a lot of tech companies that weren't in on it. They were still poaching employees, and employees were leaving to do their own start-ups.

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Re:Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google by gojomo on Monday March 24, 2014 @10:19PM (#7463362)

You're letting dynamic economic reasoning rain on the prosecutor- and journalist-fanned rage-fest. Math is hard, let's go suing!

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Re:Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google by doesnt_know on Monday March 24, 2014 @10:37PM (#7463447)

I hope you're not defending the practise? It shouldn't matter how effective the practise was, it's still wrong.

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Re:Facebook Refused No-Poaching Agreement With Google by gojomo on Monday March 24, 2014 @11:29PM (#7463635)

I don't mind a no-cold-call/no-active-solicitation agreement between companies. (That is, even if it is illegal, I don't think it should be illegal.)

I especially don't mind it if, as the great-grandparent suggests, the existence of other non-cartel competitors meant it had no effect on salaries.

Even if it did have indirect effects on salary levels, such conventions might also plausibly help prevent certain kinds of ruinous/negative-sum-for-all competition, that rewards a few rapid job-switchers, but at the expense of the industry, region, or majority of employees.

I would mind a "don't-hire-if-they-apply" agreement. That'd be an abusive oligopsony conspiracy in restraint of employees' ability to seek out new arrangements.

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