Worth to note that is not just some obscure small company coming out of nowhere to capitalize from Apple. Masimo is a decades-old medical equipment company, with several developments and patents for non-invasive PPG.
Apple is obviously well-aware of their developments, and was in touch with them already in 2013, more than a year before the launch of the Apple Watch.
From the actual lawsuit filed by Masimo in 2020 [1]:
"In 2013, Apple contacted Masimo and asked to meet regarding a potential collaboration. Apple told Masimo that Apple would like to understand more about Masimo’s technology to potentially integrate that technology into Apple’s products. Apple and Masimo later entered into a confidentiality agreement, and Masimo’s management met with Apple. The meetings included confidential discussions of Masimo’s technology. After what seemed to Masimo to have been productive meetings, Apple quickly began trying to hire Masimo employees, including engineers and key management."
Apple is quietly know for such moves. A friend of mine worked in a lab that supplied Apple with [insert thing here]. Apple poached several of their senior employees, and though the lab strenuously objected, Apple was also their biggest customer.
My friend got poached, and that lab has none of their brains left to drain. They no longer supply Apple.
Why is it scummy? Hiring people to produce goods or services and compensating them based on the value of their knowledge and abilities is sort of the entire value pitch of capitalism, and it's unlikely anyone would have moved over to Apple if the compensation wasn't more worthwhile to them.
They attempted to acquire a specific tech of Masimo, but changed their approach to hiring key resources of it instead of partnering with the company (or acquiring (parts of) it).
The aftermath is this lawsuit, which illustrates that Apple needed their hires to build something that was already existing in Masimo and would have been subject of that partnership.
I'm sure this "brainrape" strategy often works flawlessly, especially on smaller companies. But in this case the tech was already patented.
Or like a lot of technology it quickly ages. What's more important are the minds that created said technology and will have the future ideas. This is why tech companies pay a lot and grant a lot of stock. They are trying to align their incentives not just what employees create today, but what they create tomorrow using what they learned.
I don't know much about Masimo but they appear to be operating like an old school hospital technology company. They list 'algorithm developer II' salaries of $130k - 190k and requiring a MS or PhD - good luck keeping people when big tech turns its focus on an industry.
I don’t think “brainrape” is a good description as employees leave of their own choice.
The corporation isn’t paramount, the individual is. Saying Apple “brainraped” Marino because Masimo didn’t want the employees to leave with their skills leaves out the very important part that employees wanted to leave.
Companies should be able to hire away key talent because it helps the talent who get hired away. As well as the talent who stay.
The point is that Apple had Masimo describe their tech, the issues and methods they developed to solve them, and Apple walked away to rebuild Masimo's solution.
They succeeded, but unfortunately for them the methods were already patented IP of Masimo, that company which explained this whole field to Apple in first place.
The fact that Apple hired Masimo staff to do so is just the smoking gun.
It should be noted that we're taking Masimo at their word here -- scummy as described, yes, but for all we know things may have actually gone another way: they may have tried to hold Apple over a barrel, may not have actually revealed all that much, etc.
- It's agreed by both sides that meetings took place in 2013 and subsequently a confidentiality agreement was made.
- Within the same year Apple hired Masimo's Chief Medical Officer and EVP for Medical Affairs, along with additional staff.
- They developed and integrated the IP of Masimo into a commercial product.
- A judge ruled that Apple infringed patents of Masimo [1].
There's not so much room for things to have gone another way. They were aware of the company and its tech, they met with them, they hired the people away from this company, they built the tech, ultimately violating their IP.
Besides the patent infringement, I see no issue with them hiring key employees and trying to recreate the technology.
If Apple, or some other company, approached you to rebuild what you built at your current company, for a lot more money - are you really telling me you're going to say no and that's the moral thing to do?
Why are you trying to protect a company, a fictional entity, over the employees that make it up?
Noone is framing this as an issue of individual employees. It's an issue between two companies, and one of them has a very thin argument to claim that it didn't systematically extract the other one's IP without paying for it.
As mentioned elsewhere: This strategy surely works most of the time, especially on smaller companies unable to survive 10 (!!) years after their IP has been extracted to await justice. But this time it didn't work because the other company is successful in another industry and has patented the technology.
Because those actions demonstrate that the company Apple didn't rebuild the IP of the company Masimo by accident, they had close contact with each other beforehand.
Maybe the value has never been held on intelectual property but on the people who develop the technology. This is good for the workers while being bad for the capitalists.
I'm not sure why this is "scummy" though: if these employees really love their employer so much, why would they leave? And if they're leaving, they obviously didn't love their previous job that much. Why should employees be stuck in a particular company and not be allowed to leave? Or is it only wrong when employees leave for a larger company?
Right, but the anthropomorphizing of that collection of people is in this case counter to the individual people themselves - the employees were not victims of human trafficking, they left for presumably better job offers or to work on something they thought would be more interesting.
It also ignores that the Apple employees hired may not have even contributed to the Watch feature in question, because surely all of Apple works on everything Apple does.
> It's like meeting a friend's girlfriend and then asking her out later behind your back.
Trying to understand this sentence. 1. Who is asking who out behind whose back now? 2. I gather you think it's not her choice to go out or not if she wants to, since she is your property now?
> Why is it scummy? Hiring people to produce goods or services and compensating them based on the value of their knowledge and abilities is sort of the entire value pitch of capitalism, and it's unlikely anyone would have moved over to Apple if the compensation wasn't more worthwhile to them.
Its highly amoral. That may be fine (but clearly law may say otherwise), many companies do it. But then some folks not only here on HN preach Apple like second coming of Jesus also for its supposed 'high morality' and 'taking care of privacy'.
Nah, just another huge amoral corporation, this time with great marketing. As long as we can cca agree on that all is fine. Till then, I'll keep pointing to tens of cases like this to naive folks or paid PR posts worshiping them (the idea that there are none on such influential place like HN is... unwarranted)
If the original company doesn’t want their staff to be hired away, they can pay them better or provide gardening leaves.
If they have such amazing technology, why don’t they monetise it and pay their employees well? They can provide vesting options to their key employees that require them to stay.
Every employee can stay or leave as he pleases, that's not the point.
In this case, Apple hired those key-members because they wanted the tech which was developed in the environment created by Masimo. They got what they wanted, but turns out that tech was also patented, so here we are.
I don't mean the people shouldn't chose to be compensated well but if you are up against practically infinite funds there is no realistic option for a counter offer.
Apple didn't "acquire" the tech. They showed intention for a partnership to get the field of non-invasive monitoring explained to them by Masimo, and then went home to rebuild their tech without them.
They hired-away Masimo staff to achieve that, the thing they left behind and didn't acquire was the actual tech.
This strategy surely worked hundreds of times, in this case they picked the wrong company because the tech was already patented.
In the bigger picture this kind of behaviour would destroy the market for innovative tech. Why would anyone still invest in making something innovative if your work gets taken away from you the moment you become successful?
This sort of behavior has destroyed my incentive to innovate. I have had multiple patentable ideas stolen and patented by others. I’m just one guy and can’t afford the process, but a patent just gives me the right to sue someone that infringes. Which also would be leagues out of my budget. The result is that I no longer want to create anything of value, because it will just be stolen. This exceptional case only underscores that rule.
Worth to note that is not just some obscure small company coming out of nowhere to capitalize from Apple. Masimo is a decades-old medical equipment company, with several developments and patents for non-invasive PPG. Apple is obviously well-aware of their developments, and was in touch with them already in 2013, more than a year before the launch of the Apple Watch.
From the actual lawsuit filed by Masimo in 2020 [1]:
"In 2013, Apple contacted Masimo and asked to meet regarding a potential collaboration. Apple told Masimo that Apple would like to understand more about Masimo’s technology to potentially integrate that technology into Apple’s products. Apple and Masimo later entered into a confidentiality agreement, and Masimo’s management met with Apple. The meetings included confidential discussions of Masimo’s technology. After what seemed to Masimo to have been productive meetings, Apple quickly began trying to hire Masimo employees, including engineers and key management."
[1] https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/byvrlojrdve/...