BRAIN-SLURP case: Battery maker and Apple reach agreement

A123 Systems and fruitchomp goliath Apple are close to finalising a settlement over the battery-maker's accusation that Cupertino poached its engineers. Back in February, A123 filed against Apple, accusing it of slurping staff that were working on what it described as a new battery technology. It said Apple started robbing …

[eJ2095]

Poached?

So if x company is paying me x amount and another company contacts me with a better offer...

You would go for the better deal unless company you work for matches this or better..

So what they whining about?

[David Webb]

Re: Poached?

I would assume it's like this.

Company X is working on product A. Company Y is working on product B which has similarities to product A. Company Y offers people from X incentives to switch over to their company, bringing along their knowledge of product A which they will then use in product B.

Net result, Company X loses their top engineers and product A suffers, Company Y are able to bring product B to market sooner by using the skill/knowledge of Company X.

[Roland6]

Re: Poached?

Well either there is something to this or it went something like this:

First person innocently accepted a job at company A, but as part of his discussions with his recruiter he mentioned the names of a couple of his colleagues, who he thought were good. These then got approached and also innocently accepted a job at company A. People start to leave and suddenly company B notices that most of the team working on some product have moved to the same company...

I had a similar experience at one time joining another company and over the following few months bumping into "ex-colleagues" who had similarly jumped ship. The slightly irritating thing was because we all did it without talking to each other, we missed out on the rather generous recommend a colleague/friend recruitment bonus...