Seems Google is getting information about senior employees being recruited by Twitter, in order to make counter offers, TechCrunch reported.
Google offered about $150 million to keep two senior product managers offered the chief product role at Twitter earlier this year (though Business Insider claims those numbers are “tens of millions of dollars off” — but huge numbers regardless of the exact dollar figures).
“There’s lots to say about the statement Google is making with these counteroffers. “Don’t mess with us,” comes to mind. As well as “If you’re a Google employee and you aren’t out interviewing at Facebook, Twitter or Zynga you are a moron.”
Regardless, the fact that large fortunes are being handed out to mid level technical managers is somewhat of a red flag in general. That kind of money is usually reserved for founders of companies that make it to IPO. Actually, most IPO founders make substantially less than that.” TechCrunch reported.
Meanwhile, the information Google is getting access to suggests someone at Twitter is sharing information. Twitter had a problem with leaked info a couple of years ago when their internal strategy meeting notes were made public and Google may have started taking notice.
“Much of the discussion at Twitter meetings throughout the past six months revolved around dealing with Google and Facebook. In a March 13, 2009 management meeting, for example, during a discussion of a search deal with Google, the fear is expressed that “Google would kick our ass at finding the good tweet.” But almost immediately afterwards, someone asks, “Can we do to Google what Google has done to others?”
Posted by Frank Watson on April 8, 2011 9:29 AM
PARIS – FRENCH Industry Minister Eric Besson on Thursday warned the country was facing ‘economic war’ following an industrial espionage scandal at automaker Renault.
‘Unfortunately, the affair appears serious,’ Mr Besson said on RTL radio, after discussing the issue with Renault management.
‘The expression ‘economic war’, while sometimes outrageous, for once is appropriate,’ he said, calling for improvements in industrial security at companies who receive public money.
‘It appears to concern the electric car, but I do not want to go further,’ said Mr Besson.
Renault said on Wednesday it had suspended three managers for leaking secrets about electric cars, with the company staking its future on environmentally friendly vehicles and aiming to produce them for the general market. — AFP
A French official, meanwhile, sought to play down the possibility of Chinese involvement in the matter, saying the government would wait for the results of an investigation.
In an interview published Saturday in the French newspaper Le Monde, Patrick Pelata, Renault’s chief operating officer, said that an internal investigation that began in August had led the company to conclude it was the target of “a system organized to collect economic, technological and strategic information to serve interests abroad.”
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PARIS (AFP) – French automaker Renault suspects that top managers suspended for alleged industrial espionage were supplying details of the company’s electric cars to China, a newspaper and officials said Friday.
The daily Le Figaro cited “several internal sources” at the company as saying that Renault and the French secret service suspect Chinese involvement in the affair.
“Suspicions are indeed leading in that direction,” towards China, said Bernard Carayon, a lawmaker for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UM party who has authored several specialist reports on economic intelligence.
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We’d love to hear your stories of espionage. Has your company been affected? If so, what were the circumstances and outcomes? Did you catch the perpetrator(s)?
