>And we can frown upon it all the same, because it's not as if he did something innocent with unforeseen side effect - the agreement was illegal, and the fact that it was secret suggests everyone involved knew this.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most corporate agreements like this secret by default? It's an internal business mechanic and can be considered proprietary based on that. The press releases only come out when a company thinks something is of low enough tactical value that it can be revealed without harming the company and high enough PR value that it can be used to woo investors or consumers.
I don't think there's any inference that the pacts were considered immoral by the signatories in the fact that they weren't publicly declared. There were obviously many people between all of the participant companies that knew about these pacts, and it doesn't sound like it was considered super-duper-top-secret and could only be mentioned behind the closed doors of the CEO's office.
As I stated elsewhere, we should also consider the DOJ's angle on this. Prosecutors want to make a name for themselves and it's in their interest to portray all of their defendants as scoundrels. They want to blow open a big public scandal. They want to leave a legacy before the next president comes in and restocks the department with his own people. The prosecutor's job is practically to convince everyone that the defendants are evil, but in cases like this, it's rarely true. We need to acknowledge these perverse incentives as we read about this case, too.
>what you're seeing (some have stated this explicitly) is backlash against business folk who are so concerned about the high-level game being played that they've forgotten that the pieces on the board are people.
I don't think that's a fair characterization either. An executive's concern for everyone on his staff causes him to act in the best interest of the company as a whole, and not just the best interest of a specific individual or a specific type of employee that may be in greater demand. If bidding wars and poaching becomes disruptive, it's natural to seek a remedy. Catmull states several times in these articles that poaching is "bad for everyone" and seems sincere in that belief. He believes it's bad for executives, employees, competing studios, etc., and one can see the logic in that belief. He tried to stop a practice that he viewed as parasitic. In Catmull's view, even if an animator got poached with a big raise, this practice is still a net negative, presumably because it destabilizes the industry and potentially decreases the longevity of that career.
Maybe he was wrong and maybe he broke the law. But it doesn't mean that he forgot that his employees were real people.
I appreciate the rest of your post, which acknowledges that Catmull is probably not irredeemably evil.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most corporate agreements like this secret by default? It's an internal business mechanic and can be considered proprietary based on that. The press releases only come out when a company thinks something is of low enough tactical value that it can be revealed without harming the company and high enough PR value that it can be used to woo investors or consumers.
I don't think there's any inference that the pacts were considered immoral by the signatories in the fact that they weren't publicly declared. There were obviously many people between all of the participant companies that knew about these pacts, and it doesn't sound like it was considered super-duper-top-secret and could only be mentioned behind the closed doors of the CEO's office.
As I stated elsewhere, we should also consider the DOJ's angle on this. Prosecutors want to make a name for themselves and it's in their interest to portray all of their defendants as scoundrels. They want to blow open a big public scandal. They want to leave a legacy before the next president comes in and restocks the department with his own people. The prosecutor's job is practically to convince everyone that the defendants are evil, but in cases like this, it's rarely true. We need to acknowledge these perverse incentives as we read about this case, too.
>what you're seeing (some have stated this explicitly) is backlash against business folk who are so concerned about the high-level game being played that they've forgotten that the pieces on the board are people.
I don't think that's a fair characterization either. An executive's concern for everyone on his staff causes him to act in the best interest of the company as a whole, and not just the best interest of a specific individual or a specific type of employee that may be in greater demand. If bidding wars and poaching becomes disruptive, it's natural to seek a remedy. Catmull states several times in these articles that poaching is "bad for everyone" and seems sincere in that belief. He believes it's bad for executives, employees, competing studios, etc., and one can see the logic in that belief. He tried to stop a practice that he viewed as parasitic. In Catmull's view, even if an animator got poached with a big raise, this practice is still a net negative, presumably because it destabilizes the industry and potentially decreases the longevity of that career.
Maybe he was wrong and maybe he broke the law. But it doesn't mean that he forgot that his employees were real people.
I appreciate the rest of your post, which acknowledges that Catmull is probably not irredeemably evil.