> Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual's desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.
Said in email, from one CEO to another, is this obviously intentional paper trail?
> Threatening Palm with a patent lawsuit in response to a decision by one employee to leave is just out of line.
Did that patent lawsuit happen? (And if it did, did this email, which suggested illegal activity, come up in discovery.)
This is high level chess, I am certain that Jobs read that as the opening legal salvo it is. That’s a bigger threat left implied, and the smaller one was made plain (patents).
Yeah, even in 2007 Apple was a huge success already. Worth about $200 billion at the time, was earning about $3.5 billion a year in profit, and had $15 billion cash on hand.
It might not have been fully BS; as the parent commenter mentions, having a paper trail might have been an intentional strategy to try to discourage Jobs from going forward with it.
My assumption: Two CEOs might get the most done with each other if they establish trust, and talk off-the-record. But if one looks like they're CYA-ing, that lowers trust, and eliminates some of the potential negotiations and opportunities.
In this particular case between Palm and Apple, I guess they're already in an adversarial situation, and Palm CEO kinda threatening with overt CYA maybe made sense under the circumstances. But, I guess Apple CEO in the future won't be willing to float any idea to Palm CEO that they don't want blabbed or used against them. So Palm CEO has basically written off a lot of potential hypothetical opportunities with Apple?
Or was this case more like it's mutually understood that Jobs was the one who was out of line, in outright illegal conspiracy, and so Jobs would accept Palm CEO's response in that light, and might still be willing to talk with Palm CEO about sensitive (but legal) things?
Said in email, from one CEO to another, is this obviously intentional paper trail?
> Threatening Palm with a patent lawsuit in response to a decision by one employee to leave is just out of line.
Did that patent lawsuit happen? (And if it did, did this email, which suggested illegal activity, come up in discovery.)