[tushark]

This is surreal. Even though Steve Jobs is an inspiration for me, I actually agree a lot with Ed Colligan here.

A couple thoughts:

- It's definitely possible for both companies to have awesome teams. No one person is going to make or break either team.

- Employees should have a right to work where they want to. Part of this means that if I am a skilled employee, I'll get offers to come work for other companies. If I engage in a conversation, then it's perfectly alright for the company to actively recruit me. On the flip side, if I decline, they should back off. But, at the end of the day, it should be my choice. Both the company and employee need to win (which might be hard at times).

- Part of living in a free, capitalist, democratic society is the beauty that if an employee tries to leave, you can try to persuade them otherwise. This can be done in a variety of ways, but it comes down to taking the more appealing offer (that doesn't just have to be pay and title, but can also be the values of the company or the employee's lust for working at a particular company or their freedom to have a little less bureaucracy and instead experiment with new ideas, etc. etc.)

- I love the jab at the end, where Ed claims that Palm is not interested in getting or using confidential Apple information and also informs their employees of their duties to their previous employers