Apple And Google Agreed Not To Poach Workers

While Google CEO Eric Schmidt was on Apple’s board of directors, the two companies had an agreement not to hire away each other’s workers, a former Google employee with knowledge of such matters has told us. We have since confirmed this with other ex-Googlers. This was not a written agreement, and was considered non-official, but it was well-known and followed within the recruitment division of Google, we’re told.


This news follows a report by The Washington Post in early June that the Justice Department was looking into this very issue. That report cited sources close to the investigation stating that the government was looking for possible antitrust violations among several tech companies, including Google and Apple, with regard to their hiring policies. But that report didn’t say whether or not it was actually taking place. According to our sources, it is.