Sergey Brin: "Irate call from Steve Jobs"
Sergey Brin: "Irate call from Steve Jobs"
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From: Sergey Brin
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 1:06 AM
To: Executive Management Group; Joan Braddi
Subject: irate call from steve jobs
so i got a call from steve jobs today who was very agitated.
it was about us recruiting from the safari team.
he was sure we were building a browser and were trying to get the safari team.
he made various veiled threats too though i am not inclined to hold them against him too much
as he seemed beside himself (as eric would say).
anyhow, i told him we were not building a browser and that to my knowledge we were not systematically going after the safari team in particular. and that we should talk about various opportunities.
i also said i would follow up and check on our recruiting strategies wrt apple and safari. he seemed soothed.
so i just wanted to check what our status was in various respects and what we want to do about partners/friendly companies and recruiting. on the browser, i know and told him that we have mozilla people working here ... largely on firefox. i did not mention we may release an enhanced version but i am not sure we are going to yet.
on recruiting i have heard recently of one candidate out of apple that had browser expertise so i guess he would be on safari. i mentioned this to steve and he told me he was cool with us hiring anyone who came to us but was angry about systematic solicitation. i don't know if there is some systematic safari recruiting effort htat we have.
so please update me on what you know here and on what you think we should have as policy.
on another note, it seems silly to have both firefox and safari. perhaps there is some unificaiton strategy that we can get these two to pursue. combined, they certainly have enough marketshare to drive webmasters.
--sergey
From: Alan Eustace
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 4:16 PM
To: Sergey Brin; Executive Management Group; Joan Braddi
Subject: RE: irate call from steve jobs
Ben and I have been working for over 2 months to recruit [REDACTED] from the Safari team. He is absolutely one of the best in the world at Browser technology. [REDACTED] The Mozilla foundation was also trying to hire him. We finally got him to "come by and talk to a few people" last week. Carrie is throwing together the world's shortest resume. He comes to offer review on Monday, and if we make him that offer, he is likely to accept. He seemed to care whether the world has an alternative to IE. I don't believe that we have contacted anyone else from the Safari team, but I'll check with Carrie. I know that wherever [REDACTED] goes, other talented people are likely to follow.
Alan
On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:58 AM, Arnnon Geshuri wrote:
Quick update on Safari: As Alan mentions below, Ben Goodger, a Google Employee, referred [REDACTED] as well as three other developers from Apple's Safari team. We have already contacted two of the leads, [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] but have yet to contact [REDACTED].
[REDACTED] is currently in discussion with both the Mozilla Foundation and a start-up – so he was planning on leaving Apple very soon regardless of our efforts.
We are careful to adhere to non-compete agreements if we have established these with any company. However, it is the staffing organization's practice to aggressively pursue leads that come from our employees and bring the best talent onboard.
From: Bill Campbell
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:31 AM
To: Sergey Brin
Cc: Larry Page
Subject: steve jobs
Sergey
Steve just called me again and is pissed that we are still recruiting his browser guy. You should give him a call.
Bill
From: Larry Page
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:42 AM
To: Alan Eustace; Sergey Brin; Bill Brougher; Eric Schmidt
Subject: Fwd: steve jobs
He called a few minutes ago and demanded to talk to me... where are we at with the candidate?
-L
From: Larry Page
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:45 AM
To: Alan Eustace; Sergey Brin; Bill Brougher; Eric Schmidt
Subject: Re: steve jobs
Sergey is going to call him now.
On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:43 PM, Alan Eustace wrote:
We approved an offer on Monday, and [REDACTED] has it in hand. He's certainly to leave Apple, probably to us. He is waiting to see whether the two other people from Apple that we called based on internal and external references get offers. One interviewed yesterday, one is interviewing today. I'll have the results later this afternoon. Here is what Carrie wrote a couple of minutes ago. I'll definitely meet [REDACTED] today. If any of you are available, it will probably help, since Steve Jobs is meeting with [REDACTED] to try to sell him on interesting projects in Apple.
Alan
From: Sergey Brin
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2005 12:20 PM
To: Executive Management Group; Joan Braddi; Bill Campbell
Cc: Arnnon Geshuri
Subject: Re: FW: [Fwd: RE: irate call from steve jobs]
So I got another irate call from jobs today.
I don't think we should let that determine our hiring strategy but thought I would let you know.
Basically, he said "if you hire a single one of these people that means war".
I said I could not promise any outcome but I would discuss it with the executive team again.
I asked if he expected us to withdraw offers and he said yes.
In reviewing the data below again, I do think this could be treated as not just an employee referral since he referred essentially a whole team. So a compromise would be to continue with the offer we have made (to [REDACTED]) but not to make offers to any of the others unless they get permission from Apple.
In any case, lets not make any new offers or contact new people at Apple until we have had a chance to discuss.
--Sergey
[This document is from In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation (2011).]
Previously: Steve Jobs emails Eric Schmidt (March 7, 2007)
Previously: Palm CEO Ed Colligan corresponds with Steve Jobs (August 24, 2007)
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This reminds me of the recorded interview done with Craig Federighi, where similarly he denies knowledge of a project. When asked about whether Apple is pursuing V/AR technology he responds "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about". Just yesterday Apple leaked their A/VR headset as part of CES.
I guess in these supposedly high stakes games you can't show your hand, so I wonder why journalists even bother asking execs about such future projects.
One thing that stood out to me is that the initial email got sent at 1AM on a Sunday. Always on...