[jahewson]

> Why not just make everyone working there an incredible offer at the same time?

Under civil law this is regarded as tortious interference. Businesses have a contract with their employees and if you interfere with it to harm the employer then you are liable for damages.

If you tried to make a mass offer like this, the employer could likely get a judge to place an injunction against it immediately.

If they don’t notice until further down the line, watch out: damages are unlimited. They can extend to a judge breaking up your new business unit and handing it back to the original employer or rewarding damages of the entire lifetime value of the business unit.

That’s why you never see companies do this :)

[93po]

it's ridiculous how america is all about free markets except for the instances where rich people could lose money, then suddenly free markets are bad and evil

[dahart]

Which rich people are you talking about, the buyer or the seller? Presumably the buyer of a startup is richer than the startup founders. If poaching all the employees of a company was legal, then we’d end up with only monopolies by the largest and richest, and it would be legal for big companies to crush smaller competition. The playing field in the U.S. and everywhere globally is definitely biased toward the rich, but you’re inadvertently arguing for even greater concentration of wealth, it doesn’t seem like this argument is well thought out.

[cultureswitch]

I wonder what's the theory of harm behind such law. Employers competing over talent is... illegal? Explains a lot actually.

[SupremumLimit]

Step 1: make everyone an incredible offer Step 2: get them all hired away from your competitor who is now out of business Step 3: in a year or two, restructure all these people out (or just fire them if your jurisdiction allows) Step 4: your competitor is gone, and all it cost was a year or two of salaries.

Seems like a great way to help out budding monopolies.

[93po]

it seems like you can just prevent this by providing incentives for your employees to not get poached, and also companies that mass-hire-mass-fire would get reputations for doing so, and people wouldn't fall for it. making it illegal instead of requiring businesses to actually pay for retention and loyalty in a free market way is so silly

[1123581321]

When a mass employment offer is made to steal or destroy another business, it's usually something ridiculous. For developers it might be a million a year each, for example. It's not an amount intended to be paid perpetually so it can be larger than the defending business can be paying to retain.

It is not illegal to do general hiring at good rates and shop for employees at a particular company. That wouldn't have the same results as buying a company. Plus, you wouldn't own their creations; you'd have to rebuild or clean room steal it.

[Applejinx]

The 'people wouldn't fall for it' is in error. People aren't rational actors and don't have complete information. That's a bold statement, I know, but it's at least as correct as 'people wouldn't fall for it'. I'm pretty sure it's easy to make a case for 'too many people will fall for it'.

[93po]

america is nothing if not the land of opportunity to make stupid decisions and have to live with the results

[dahart]

You’re assuming that a startup has more money than a larger company. Why?

And since when has a company’s reputation stopped them from doing business?