Steve Jobs and Palm

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Palm’s CEO emails Steve Jobs

From: Ed Colligan
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 6:30 PM
To: Steve Jobs
Subject: Your proposal

Steve:

I have thought long and hard about our conversation on Wednesday, and I thought it important to let you know my position on the issues we discussed. I hope we can resolve our differences, but it has to be on terms that are right not only for our respective companies, but for the individuals potentially affected. 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. I even thought about coming back with a proposal about limiting recruitment efforts, but frankly, I did not think it was something you would agree to do.

Like you, one of my most important tasks as CEO is to build and retain a first class team. I know it's difficult when a respected employee decides to leave the company for a new challenge, but, as you said in our call, "this is America." We can't dictate where someone will work, nor should we try. I can't deny people who elect to pursue their livelihood at Palm the right to do so simply because they now work for Apple, and I wouldn't want you to do that to current Palm employees. We can both try to persuade them to stay but, at the end of the day, it is their choice, and a choice we should respect.

In our search for the best talent, one thing is always certain - experienced people come from somewhere else. Palm doesn't target other companies - we look for the best people we can find. I'd hope the same could be said about Apple's practices. However, during the last year or so, as Apple geared up to compete with Palm in the phone space, Apple hired at least 2% of Palm's workforce. To put it in perspective, had Palm done the same, we'd have hired 300 folks from Apple. Instead, to my knowledge, we've hired just three.

Steve, we don't want to hurt Apple. As I said on the phone, Palm is focused on building the best team in the industry, and we know there is a lot of quality talent outside of Apple. On the other hand, this is a small space, and it's inevitable that we will bump into each other. Threatening Palm with a patent lawsuit in response to a decision by one employee to leave Apple is just out of line. A lawsuit would not serve either of our interests, and will not stop employees from migrating between our companies. This is a very exciting time for both of our companies, and the market is certainly big enough for both of us. We should focus on our respective businesses and not create unnecessary distractions.

That said, I want to be clear that we are not intimidated by your threat. Palm has a very robust portfolio of patents, having been in the handheld and smartphone businesses since the early 90's. In addition, Palm now owns the former Siemens mobile patent portfolio, most recently held by BenQ Corporation. This mobile computing and communications portfolio includes over 1500 patent assets, the majority filed in Europe. If you choose the litigation route, we can respond with our own claims based on these patent assets, but I don't think litigation is the answer. We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money.

Finally, while you didn't raise the concern in our call, I want to reassure you that Palm is not interested in getting or using confidential Apple information. We inform new employees of their responsibilities to their former employers and will continue to do so. Of course, we expect Apple to do the same.

I remain willing to discuss a reasonable resolution that is responsible to our respective employees and that is fair to both companies.

Sincerely,

Ed


From: Steve Jobs
Subject: Fwd: Your proposal
Date: Sun 8/26/2007 11:42 am
To: Ed Colligan
Cc: Steve Jobs

Ed,

This is not satisfactory to Apple.

It is not just a matter of our employees deciding they want to join Palm. They are being actively recruited using knowledge supplied by Jon Rubenstein and Fred Anderson, with Jon personally participating in the recruiting process. We must do whatever we can to stop this.
I'm sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies when you say: "We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money."

Just for the record, when Siemens sold their handset business to BenQ they didn't sell them their essential patents but rather just gave them a license. The patents they did sell to BenQ are not that great. We looked at them ourselves when they were for sale. I guess you guys felt differently and bought them. We are not concerned about them at all. My advice is to take a look at our patent portfolio before you make a final decision here.

Steve


[This document is from In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation (2011).]

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Previously: Sergey Brin: “Irate call from Steve Jobs” (February 13, 2005)

Previously: Steve Jobs emails Adobe’s CEO (May 26, 2005)

Previously: Eric Schmidt: "Phone call from Meg Whitman" (September 7, 2005)

Previously: Sheryl Sandberg on Facebook-Google hiring (August 9, 2008)

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Mark Zuckerberg messages Facebook exec

February 8, 2011

Instagram seems like it's growing quickly. In 4 months they're up to 2m users and 300k daily photo uploads. That's a lot. We need to track this closely.

Also, apparently Dropbox's next big push is going to be in photo sharing. [REDACTED], have you heard anything back from [REDACTED] on this?

Conversation with Chris Cox, [REDACTED] and Mark Zuckerberg


[This document is from FTC v. Meta (2024).]

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Previously: Mark Zuckerberg: "It's a really big deal that we ship this photos app" (September 11, 2011)

Previously: Instagram cofounder on Mark Zuckerberg: “will he go into destroy mode if I say no” (February 13, 2012)

Previously: Mark Zuckerberg tries to buy Instagram (Circa March 2012)

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