[greggman]

Agreed

Your friend starts a company, you become friends with his employees. Eventually you start a company a really want to offer an amazing opportunity to one of your new friends but you don't because why?

Why are you denying someone the choice? It seems almost immoral that you wouldn't give her the choice and instead deny her the opportunity just because she happens to be employees by another friend

What if you had no faith that your friend's company would survive? Does that change your mind? What if you thought your friend's company would survive but never be more than limping along whereas you had faith that your company would become huge?

I ran a company,this issue came up when a friend asked if it was ok to poach from us. My first reaction was to think "no way" but my partners pointed out denying our employees opportunities was wrong. Fortunately none of them left.