Steve Jobs Emailed Eric Schmidt to Stop Poaching Apple Talents

Apple Inc.'s late co-founder, Steve Jobs, apparently e-mailed former Google Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Erich Schmidt in 2007, asking him to stop trying to hire an Apple engineer, a court filing revealed on Friday.

A copy of the e-mail from Jobs to Schmidt was disclosed during a civil lawsuit against a group of seven tech companies, including Apple and Google. The proposed class action, brought about by five software engineers, charges the companies of conspiring to keep employee compensation low by eliminating competition for skilled labor, Reuters reported.

In 2010, companies like Google, Apple, Adobe Systems, Intel, Intuit Inc. and Walt Disney Co.'s Pixar unit reportedly agreed to a settlement of a U.S. Justice Department investigation that barred them from agreeing to avoid poaching each other's employees.

The court filing in the civil litigation on Friday revealed that in March 2007, now-deceased Jobs emailed Schmidt, who was an Apple board member at the time, about an attempt by a Google employee to hire an Apple engineer.

I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this, Jobs wrote. Schmidt then forwarded the email to other undisclosed recipients asking for an explanation.

I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple and this is a direct inbound request. Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening? I will need to send a response back to Apple quickly so please let me know as soon as you can, Schmidt wrote.

Following Schmidt's email, Google's staffing director responded the employee who contacted the Apple engineer will be terminated within the hour.

Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs, the staffing director added to the email.

Google has always actively and aggressively recruited top talent, a Google spokesperson told CNET in regards to the filing. However, representatives for both Apple and Google could not immediately be reached for comment on the case itself.

Apart from Jobs' email, the recent filing has also revealed that an Apple employee attempted to apply for a position at Pixar but was told by an employee there that only problem--we can't poach from Apple.