"Victims of a conspiracy : Around 64,000 silicon valley programmers were cheated by their bosses......"

Joseph R. Saveri

said Joseph R. Saveri, a lawyer for the plaintiffs of a class-action lawsuit that accuses industry executives of agreeing between 2005 and 2009 not to poach one another's employees. According to a report of The New York Times March 1, the case is headed to trial in San Jose this spring and seeks billions of dollars in damages.  Mr. Saveri said that "these engineers were prevented from being able to freely negotiate what their skills are worth."

"Its mastermind, court papers say, was the executive who was the most successful, most innovative and most concerned about competition of all -- Steve Jobs", the newspaper reported.

Steve Jobs : Hero or Villain?

Quoting court papers, the news-report says : "Mr. Jobs was particularly worried about Google, which was hiring rapidly and expanding into areas where Apple had an interest. In 2005, for instance, Google's co-founder, Sergey Brin, tried to hire from Apple's browser team. "If you hire a single one of these people that means war," Mr. Jobs warned in an email."

Mr. Brin backed off, and Google and Mr. Jobs soon came to an informal agreement not to solicit each other's employees. Apple made similar deals with other companies. So did Google. By 2007, when a Google recruiter slipped up and contacted an Apple engineer, Mr. Jobs immediately complained. To appease the Apple chief, Google fired the recruiter within an hour. Mr. Jobs's control extended even to former Apple engineers. When Google wanted to hire some, the suit says, Mr. Jobs vetoed the idea.