Microsoft Sues Google For Hiring MS Exec 720
bonch writes "So it begins...Microsoft is suing Google for wooing away a top executive to work in a China research lab. Microsoft is accusing Kai-Fu Lee of breaking his contract by taking a job within a year of leaving Microsoft, and accused Google of 'intentionally assisting Lee.' Google describes the claims as 'completely without merit' and vows to defend against them."
The world should sue MS for that very same reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Borland Playbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe try reading your contract next time, Lee (Score:5, Insightful)
"At Microsoft, Lee oversaw development of the company's MSN Internet search technology, including a desktop search service released earlier this year."
Sign a non-compete clause on your contract, run a department, leave that company to work for the competitors identical department, and then sit back and say "Aw shucks, I didn't realize this would be a problem."? No, sorry, no support from me on this issue.
Sounds more like Google went head-hunting and didn't cross their T's and dot their i's.
And don't proclaim the whole 'undue hardship of finding a job in that field' angle, because it's rather obvious exactly why he got this job.
I think Microsoft will probably let this one go; however, it does reflect poorly on Lee (and Google).
Re:Um.. dude's gotta fuckin work. (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you know anything of the business world?
Explain to me... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good think Microsoft has never stooped to hiring a key person away from a competitor!
-a.d.-
hmm! nice lie couched as fact (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, this "fierce battle" is entirely in the writer's imagination. Google dominates. M$ has said they plan to catch up one day. If the search tech on their own web site is any indication, they never will.
Nice abuse of rhetoric though.
Re:Lawsuit on Google? (Score:2, Insightful)
Like helping him to break the law, or something like that.
Re:Some Jobs Prevent Working for Competitors (Score:4, Insightful)
Completely without Merit (Score:3, Insightful)
"A spokesman said 'Actually, there is some merit in their case, but we're going to have a go fighting it anyway'" - hm. No not likely!
No doubt someone will come up with a real example now i've mentioned it.
Jolyon
Re:Borland Playbook (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a difference. Microsoft has more lawyers. Wasn't M$ sued by the government, M$ lost, and was ordered to split into 2 seperate companies? What happened? Appeal, appeal, appeal. And wait for a new administration, and new attorney general.
Microsoft is not following the law, they are not even obeying the law. They are using the judiciary to rewrite the laws with selective interpretation.
Think about how involved M$ is with government. How much money do they donate each year to canidates they want? Then when it comes time to appoint judges, there is M$ again. Sooner or later, M$ will end up in a court with a judge they hand selected. It is the same method the Mafia used, get their thugs in positions of government.
If Microsoft was held accountable for every contract they broke, they would cease to exists.
Re:MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Some Jobs Prevent Working for Competitors (Score:3, Insightful)
Killing them would be able to stop them from taking their knowledge over as well. Doesn't mean it's ethical. I don't believe "You can't work for company X (or industry X) after you're fired for Y time" is ethical at all. They've fired me, that's their problem. If they wanted me to not work for another company, then they shouldn't have fired me, or given me terms and conditions that would make me not want to leave. Unfortunately the person signed the contract, so it's their fault, but from the sounds of it quite a lot of jobs in America have non-compete agreements, so looking for a job in a particular sector without one sounds like it would be very, very difficult.
It is unethical to take over things that you're contractually signed against doing. But the company should devise a method to stop me that doesn't result in me being out of work.
In MS's case, I think this is obsurd!
Why? Perhaps he has inside knowledge on difficulties Microsoft was having with the Chinese government. Perhaps he's planning on telling google what secret projects were beneath him so Google can begin creating counter-projects. Perhaps he knows of how Microsoft is going to attempt to win over search engine users, so Google can work on a defence. There is plenty of knowledge this guy could have that Google would want to know.
Re:The world should sue MS for that very same reas (Score:5, Insightful)
MicroSoft has a bad history of hiring managers/senior programmers from other companies and having them do the exact same work they used to do, but under their new four colored flag. So indeed: For the greater good, sue them (back)! :p
Re:Some Jobs Prevent Working for Competitors (Score:4, Insightful)
Some jobs do in fact prevent you from working for the competitor. A lot of the time it's part of the non-disclosure agreement.
I've heard in the past that these types of clauses are generally unenforceable. Any lawyers care to chime in?
This prevents you from being able to take your knowledge of a product that you were working on at company A to company B.
Why is that a problem? Trade secrets, patents and copyright are already in place to protect against this type of thing.
This kind of practice is completely ethical.
You think so? Where are you supposed to work for the next three years then? At McDonalds? These types of agreements essentially remove the possibility of you doing anything you are remotely qualified for even after your employment ends. What are you supposed to do for a living?
If a company really thinks that an employee has such valuable knowledge that copyrights, patents and trade secrets aren't enough, then they should write a really long notice period into their contracts and continue to pay the employee for doing what they are told.
Taking your knowledge from 1 company to another is very unethical
This is nonsense. It's called "experience". What, you forget everything you learned at a job when you leave the place? I wouldn't want to employ you.
In MS's case, I think this is obsurd!
Absurd.
Re:...just add "on the computer" to it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Highlander (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously Google, take them ALL take all their fucking people. EVERY ONE OF THEM. Microsoft is so hipocritical. They stole people from all over the IT industry. Everything they have is stolen bought or copied technology.
*MS*DOS belonged to
Windows paid settlement for basing their UI on
NT was developed by
ActiveDirectory is adapted from
Visio was developed by
C# is based on
Microsoft should be sued by God on account that they've persuaded his talent to join the dark side.
Talk to a lawyer ASAP (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot is a bunch geeks who are good with technology, but that doesn't make any of us legal experts in any way shape or form. I am sure that you can hammer out a mutually acceptable agreement if you get some legal muscle working on it.
It just goes to show.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most companies will agree to reasonable changes to your contract if you negotiate with them upon signing. Contracts can include ridiculous limitations to the way you live your life now and in the future, read them carefully and don't be afraid to ask for changes. they've had the contract written up to give them as much as possible, but as an employee its up to you to decide how much you want to give them.
If they're completely inflexible do you really want to work for Hugenormous Pan-galactic Deathcorp Inc.?
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:3, Insightful)
Most important rule of all (Score:3, Insightful)
However, there is one UNBREAKABLE rule that every lawyer follows in tort cases: Never sue a poor person. period.
Now, who do you suppose has more money, the ex-employee, or Google?
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a contract. No matter what they say to your face the *only* think that matters is what is written down.
If they say they'll never actually enforce it get that in writing an have it added to the contract before signing. I bet you $100 they refuse to do that... guess why...
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:4, Insightful)
If that doesn't fly, I would run as fast away from that company as I could if I were you. My feeling is that if my employer distruts me enough to put such harsh restrictions on my employment, is that somewhere where I truly want to work?
And as the other poster said, these are definitely not common terms. Common terms would be things like direct non-compete clauses (such as with Mr. Lee), nondisclosure agreements, and ownership of code/inventions/IP created while at work.
I work for a major university, which does a lot of research, and one of the first pieces of paper they put in front of me was the document that said everything I create while at work was the property of the University. Honestly, I would have been suprised if they hadn't asked me to sign such a document.
I know it's a little touchy-feely, but understand that you are the real commodity in this situation. Ask any HR manager, good employees are hard to find, and hiring a new employee is an expensive process. So if you are a proven quantity, they have more to lose than you do.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not in California. Apparently they've made laws against those pesky "non compete" clauses.
Microsoft going after Google is kind of funny - the employee had a contract with Microsoft. Google was under no such agreement. Good luck with this one Microsoft. Maybe going after the employee would have worked, but going after Google? What are they, SCO now?
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing is worth noting, no where is MSFT or anyone else forcing this person to be jobless. He agreed to these terms at the start of his employment, if he had disagreed with them he shouldn't have signed the contract and taken the job. Furthermore, nothing is stopping him from working at all, he is simply barred from working certain jobs at certain companies within certain industries.
Again, please do us all a favor and do some research into what this is about.
It's a battle (Score:3, Insightful)
That's actually beside the point, because the outcome of the battle for the search market is by no means a foregone conclusion. Microsoft is pouring a lot of time, energy, and money into search technology. Google obviously still dominates, but not by nearly the margin they did even one year ago. Yahoo has improved its interface and is slowly doing a better job of integrating its disparate services. MSN Search is clearly better than it used to be, both in interface and search relevance. Microsoft has identified search as a core technology, and they will not sit idly by and watch Google eviscerate them in such an important market.
You go on thinking there isn't a battle. Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft all know differently.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
Right. But if the roles were reversed, it'd have been a well played move by Google to protect themselves from competition!
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone else has already stated it but I'll say it again:
* Contracts are 2 ways. You are allowed to change them. Cross out what you don't like and sign and date the changes. At the end you both sign the new contract.
* It's generally easier to add a clause then take one away.
* If it is just a friendly contract the boss won't have a problem with your changes.
* Turn the contract around instead of the boss asking you why you won't sign it ask him to justify the points you have a problem with.
* You can also write up a counter contract and ammend the original contract to refer to the additional contract. Eg you have a contract with the boss that says there will always be free coffee, you will always get more than 20 hous of work per week, etc. If this contract is broken it also frees you of the former contract.
Generally once you're able to get the boss in your shoes and ask him if he'd agree to similar terms he will be reasonable. Also I've generally found it's easier to add conditions that make something toothless than crossing it out.
Eg.
* I cannot use a (work supplied) computer for two years after I leave.
* The contract never expires. (For the duration of my employment)
* Anything I do on my computer, at my own home, on my time, belongs to the company. (As long as it is linked to a project at work)
* If I get another job on a computer, I have to notify them (for the first year), and the company has a right to send my new employer a copy of the contract (after notifying you beforehand in writing, failure to notify you beforehand will result in the termination of this contract).
As you can see this doesn't cross anything out but makes them almost meaningless.
Kai-Fu Lee's interesting history (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you notice that Kai-Fu has worked at a number of tech companies in succession:
A pattern that occurs to me is that he is a knack of leaving sinking ships... (I know Apple is no longer sinking, but it was until Steve Jobs came back and refloated it.)
Could this mean that Microsoft is taking on water?
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a red pen, and cross-out the parts that you disagree with (and in theory want to negotiate).
And/Or
Where you sign it also write: Under duress of Termination.
Or, more importantly; Talk to a REAL lawyer.
I'll be watching... (Score:4, Insightful)
So I'll be keeping an eye on this just for reference. I like my job and don't intend to go fishing for people to hire me away. But it would be good to see the agreement tested.
- StaticLimit
Re:Some Jobs Prevent Working for Competitors (Score:3, Insightful)
In a LOT of jurisdictions these are completely unenforceable.
>>If you work for a defense contractor, for
>>example, Lockheed Martin, they will make you
>>sign an agreement that you will not work for
>>Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon, etc for a 3 year
>>period.
Then your original employer must be willing to pay your salary for that three year period. If you are that specialized of a person, an employment contractor that puts those kinds of conditions in your terms of employment are basically making it so you cannot work if you want to leave. What are you supposed to do - go work at Taco Bell for the next 3 years?
Most sane legal proceedings will not uphold such a contract that essentially makes you unemployable and thus unable to support yourself.
(And before you try to argue, this is not a point of opinion. It is a point of fact).
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
With Apple sueing fan sites for allegedly inducing people to break their contracts (NDA is a type of contract) and winning, they've paved the way for people to be sued* for allegedly inducing someone to break a contract. Which is the better company again? (Yeah, I expect to get modded down from the Apple fan-boys, but it's true, it's annoying when someone points out facts).
* Although it's highly possible they weren't the first, they have still taken advantage of it though.
Re:Some Jobs Prevent Working for Competitors (Score:3, Insightful)
What's so funny is what is consider unethical. Its NOT unethical to take your knowledge and skills that you've gained from work and life from one company and give them to another. It's typical and standard practice. That's why losing longterm employees can be quite damaging to organizations regardless if the are for-profits or nonprofits.
Organizational knowledge and a large portion of what corporations classify as "intellectual property" belongs inherently to individuals NOT organizations. Take a moment to think about the best employee at your job. Not the flashiest or the one who earns the most money; but who's the go to person when you need something accomplished; who knows the various process for champion a new project; hiring new staff; get code out the door on time, instead of six weeks behind. Now think what happens if that persons gone tomorrow.
Despite decades of effort, most organizations don't have adequate systems to retain "organizational knowledge". And the reason why, is that that knowledge never belonged to the organization, but was always tied to specific individuals who made things happen.
Non-competition clauses are just better ways of organizations saying to individuals, your knowledge belongs to me. But in truth, your knowledge always belongs to you, and you can impart it to one organization; multiple organizations; or horde it to yourself. But unless you've made a concerted effort to document your knowledge for your organization; when you go, the knowledge goes with you.
Nothing unethical about that, just the basic truth of how knowledge flows.
Re:I believe I worked for you once (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slightly O/T 'non-competition'... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't believe your boss, he doesn't know what he's talking about. If the contract is "legal speak", how would he know what it means? And if he does know and isn't willing to sit down with you and the company lawyer and explain it to your satisfaction, I wouldn't trust his opinion. Also, last I heard, most managers haven't worked for every other business out there, so how would he know what they'll make you sign?
Bottom line is, whatever you do, don't sign a contract you're uncomfortable with. Contracts are something that all parties have to agree to, and if you don't agree, don't sign it. Show it to someone you trust, or even a lawyer. For something as important as your primary source of income, a lawyer isn't all that expensive. If you have reasonable requests, your company will work with you if they value you as an employee. It's a lot easier for them to keep you than to hire someone else and bring them up to speed.
Re:I believe I worked for you once (Score:3, Insightful)
Unions are not the problem - unions run by arseholes that do not work in the interests of their members like in the anecdote above are. A union is there to stop people getting exploited or sacked unfairly and to protect the interests of it's members when dealing with employers - anything beyond that is playing politics.
That is exactly my impression of Unions as well.
A good union should not try and screw the company. A good union should protect the workers so they don't all get screwed. If a company could deal with workers on a 1 by 1 basis, they could intimidate and hire and fire who they want. Look at how walmart treats its employees. If there was a union at walmart, maybe instead of people making $6 an hour, they would make something a little more, maybe they could cross the poverty line. And maybe walmart could not intimidate people to work days they had scheduled off. And walmart would not look at their workers as interchangable, hire and fire at will. There would be some job secuirty. Finally, maybe the union could force walmart to give workers 40 hours a week, rather than having twice as many workers working 20 hours a week. There is flexibility to give the company what it needs, and treat workers with respect at the same time.
A union should be able to negotiate a fair contract with the company. The problem is, what is fair? Once upon a time, fair used to be Company makes $X, lets split is, the CEO will get more because he is our leader, in return the CEO will give is a livable wage, health insurance, a pension, and not work us like slaves.
Then the CEO started wanting EVERYTHING. It no longer was a question of "what is fair", it was a question of "how much can I take". And the unions did the same thing, except is was not how much can the workers take, it was how much can the union take. So now, you have CEO's making multiples of what they made 30 years ago, and you have unions with reps making sure nobody does more work than the minimum quota.
That union I mentioned in my original post was not all bad. They had some good parts in the contract. If the company had to lay off people, the company could not hire anyone unless they first offered the old jobs back to those who were laid off. Plus, the union would pay 50% or some % of the salary of the laid off person for 6 months after unemployment benefits ran out.
I wish unions did not embrace the tactics of the CEO. Maybe that is todays buisness environment, you fight for as much as you can possibly get. But it seems to me that unions and companies could exist in a state where everyone was better off.
Re:I believe I worked for you once (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the strongest forces pushing american manufacturing jobs out of the country is Union BS.
When Unions protect workers frm unreasonable working conditions, or an unsafe environment, they're doing what we need unions to do. When they're trying to make sure their members have to be paid whether they actually work to capacity or not, they're just stealing from the rest of us.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
More accurately: The perception is that Google probably wouldn't do this. We perceive it that way because Slashdot hasn't had an article making a mountain out of a molehill about every little bad thing Google does.
Whereas with Microsoft, most people around here would assume that Microsoft would sell kitten burgers in order to gain marketshare with IE. Not because MS has ever actually done this, but because Slashdot tells us that everything MS does is evil.
It's all about perception. We all sport woodies over Google, so we look at the positive side of whatever Google does. We all hate Microsoft, so we look at the negative side of what Microsoft does.
I would agree if you didn't know of the contract (Score:5, Insightful)
If you didn't know about the contract then I would agree with you. But if you knew about the contract between the two parties and then intentionally helped one of the parties break that contract that is where you have the tort violation. Because you acted in bad faith to sever a legally recognized relationship.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
Coming from one of the hardest-core Linux zealots: MacIntosh. MacIntosh is about ten-heptillion evil-points behind Microsoft. They would have to resort to mass genocide just to keep up.
Nevertheless, the whole legal system needs a French-revolution-style remodeling. What happened to the Emancipation Proclamation?
http://www.nps.gov/ncro/anti/emancipation.html [nps.gov]
Alienation of Affection... (Score:3, Insightful)
No it isn't. It's equally valid for husbands who leave their wives. It's based on the concept of marriage as a contract, in the same way as the "tortious interference" claims we see here.
Do you read your contracts? (Score:2, Insightful)
A lot of people responding to this article either must not read most of what they sign, or haven't worked for many companies! All of these "don't sign it, or expect to live with the terms of the contract" posts are simplistic, and childish. Often, there is little choice for an employee. Let me give you an example.
I left one company to go to work at another company. I negotiated the terms of my employment in a number of meetings, and got a letter of intent. I then quit my old job, and moved to a new city to start my new job. I worked a month, and then when the time came to pick up my first paycheck, I got a call from accounting saying I needed to come to the office and sign a few documents before they could release my pay. O go in the office, and low and behold, it is a contract saying that I can't work in any related field for a year after leaving for any reason, as well as a clause saying that any work I do on or off the clock belongs to them, and a clause saying that I can't ever use any skills or techniques I learn or develop there at any other company, and several other things that directly go against the terms agreed to when I took the job!
I immediately schedule a meeting with the owner of the company, and sit down to talk to him. At first I am given the standard "it is just a formality, and we don't actually enforce it" line of crap, but as soon as I even mention the word "lawyer" I am told that if I don't sign it immediately, I will no longer have a job, and my pay will not be released.
So, there I was having just spent quite a bit of money to move to a new city, and having lived off my savings for a month while I waited for my first paycheck, and I am faced with the option of either having to sign a contract that I don't agree with, or with no money in my pocket, in a city I don't know, start looking for a new job after having given someone a month of free work. It is a bit more complicated than "don't sign it, or expect to live with the terms of the contract."
I could tell tons of stories about people I know who had to sign contracts like this after years of working at a company, in order to vest their stock options, or people who had contracts like this presented to them after a management change at a job where they had invested a lot of time and work. The hook is always, that you have put time and work into something, and before you can get paid for what you did, you need to sign one of these bullshit contracts as "a formality." In my case, I ended up having to sign it to get my money, then hire a lawyer to review it and plan a strategy to get me out of it while I looked for new work.
That is where I learned this next bit. In most states, you have inalienable rights that you can't sign away in a contract! In fact, it turns out that almost the entire contract in question was completely unenforceable. Employers have you sign these things because most employees won't take them to court over it, and just get bullied by the company because they think that if they signed the contract, then they are screwed, so why bother paying an attorney.
In the vast majority of states, no contract can prohibit you from perusing your chosen field. If the business you are working for classifies every company in their given market as a competitor, then it is meaningless for them to put in a non-compete clause, because they cannot enforce a contract that forbids you from an entire industry. Now, if they have one or two specific competitors, or clients that they forbid you from working for, then they might well have an enforceable contract. By the same token, in most states no matter what a contract says, no contract can sign away blanket ownership of all works of an individual to their employer. If you can prove that you did not use any resources of your employer's in the creation of said work, then no matter what you signed, they most likely are going to have a very hard time proving that they own said work.
A contract is not a law, it is just a piece of paper with some wo
Re:"intentially"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of it the other way around, if you are Larry and Sergey and you put X exec in charge of some top secret new Google project, say the Google OS everyone is speculating about, and that person, after finding out the details of this project suddenly goes and works for Microsoft in the Longhorn division. Wouldn't that scare you, as a company who has just put all this money into developing this new project? I think non-compete clauses that allow no work in the tech sector basically afterwards are dumb, but this kind of non-compete clause is just necessary to stop corporate espianoge.
Re:"intentially"? (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, a lab tech who works for a large pharma company and signs a non-compete agreement has a much better chance of it being overturned if challenged than a TV or Radio personality, or high level executive.
A big reason why these agreements are found to be unconscionable is that they unreasonably interfere with your ability to make a living. If all your training and experience is in a particular field, and then your company says you can't do that kind of work, there is little chance that the agreement will be upheld.
Oh, and for the record IANAL.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is nothing compared to what they used to be now that every action they do is scrutinized. Do you remember when Microsoft would give huge discounts on OEM software if the hardware vendor would agree to only bundle Microsoft software products? Then there was the strong-arming of vendors to only bundle IE and not Netscape with similar tactics, and when they got in regulatory trouble, they claimed IE was an integral part of Windows. Incidentally, they attempted to do the same thing with MS-SQL by only selling the server OS's with MS-SQL bundled and it failed because business customers were willing to chip in to extra dough to add Oracle or some other database on top, anyway (something consumer customers would be less likely to do). Even Windows Networking was pretty sneaky (at the expense of Novell).
Apple has their own evils - the ROM chip that prevented clones and other OS's by holding chunks of the MacOS and startup code, their intentional breaking of macs that used 3rd party upgrade chips (vendors had to supply OpenFirmware hacks to make them work), the early killing of machines and hardware support (going all the way back to the Apple ][gs, but including stuff like the G3 without a floppy drive when many people still used floppies).
Neither company strives for compatibility, though Apple prefers hardware (mac, iPod, etc) lockin and Microsoft prefers software lockin (technologies like
Re:"intentially"? (Score:4, Insightful)
What the hell does that leave? The toaster oven industry?
Re:You represent the sad mentality of most employe (Score:1, Insightful)
Why should I need balls to decide I don't like some terms of a contract presented to me?
The reverence some people have for corporations just baffles me.
If a corporation goes bankrupt, it's shareholders suffer no liability for losses incurred. If a human runs out of food, he can't eat. He needs money to buy food. He needs a job to get money.
Which of these two parties should care more about money: the ones who are engaging in a financial experiment in search of extra profits, or the one for whom not earning a living means poverty and physical suffering?
Which side has the greater power in the courts: the one which can afford a team of expert lawyers, can pay legal fees and court costs with ease, or the side which can't?
Most people can't affort to risk not eating. Most corporations can afford to go bankrupt; in fact, 9 out of ten new companies do just that.
It's always a bad idea to offend someone with more money than you. If they choose to hold a grudge, they can make your life miserable, and you can't stop them. Offending a corporate executive can be a life ruining decision, if they take a whim to dislike you.
That's why normal people "have reverence" (ie. fear) of corporations and the people who run them.
It doesn't "take balls" to sign a contract between people with equal rights. In our society, however, corporations have more power than any individual will ever have, and far, far less accountability. That's why it takes balls to refuse one of the people in power: it's a uneven partnership from the start, and everyone knows it.
--
AC