[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2002542493A5/en%EF%BF%BC
So I suppose if Massimo is going to use a technical legality to extend then Apple can use a technical legality to avoid.
The only IP that companies can own now are specific methods/improvements, not the base idea of measuring SpO2 with light. All Apple has to do is avoid the specific improvements that Masimo owns and they are fine.
These were NOT small devices like the inexpensive fingertip versions you can buy now over the counter; rather, they were big boxlike machines, perhaps 2 feet x 1.5 feet x 8 inches high. They were SO heavy (I'd estimate 25 pounds) they were attached to a stainless steel rolling cart.
In today's dollars, that's $54,000-$80,000.
But, in short, no, not yet: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/do...
Which - to be clear - is because the sensor chemically degrades over time. It's not just rent-seeking; they genuinely don't know how to make one that'll last longer.
I believe a firm in Uk holds a patent for it and Apple has partnered with them a while ago.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-takes-key-step-towards-b...
But extracting an accurate enough signal from noise through the skin is an incredibly complex signal analysis problem. And there are multiple approaches.
Nothing has FDA approval yet because it's a major question whether any technology developed thus far is accurate enough. I understand there's at least one clinical trial going on right now. Fingers crossed...
So the quick answer is: no, not even close. Also, you would somehow have to measure a very low concentration of soluble chemical in a fluid with always changing composition of a bunch of chemically similar other constituents across relatively wide tissue layers that themselves have a lot of that same chemical..
It's absolutely sci-fi.
> This update was enabled by a recent U.S. Customs ruling.
I can't find the ruling in question, though, so I'm not sure what they mean.
But many people are willing to pay get more health information, especially wealthier demographics who have interest in health and appearances of health.
I have a real finger-based one bought during COVID that I trust more.
Regular pulse oxygen meters are cheap and reliable.
I really use the hell out of it. Yeah I can't play solitaire like an iWatch, but the battery lasts 7 days in the backcountry, the flashlight is unbelievably handy while hiking/camping/boondocking, and it helps me be healthy with all of the data. Being able to trigger my inReach is also a nice touch. It's definitely a tool rather than a fashion piece.
It does not inspire me to move up their range when this watch eventually dies: if they can't get the basic feature working, I have a hard time seeing how they're going to manage anything trickier.
That guy is a great reference, and through his videos you can find various measures where he compares devices against reference devices (e.g. the Polar H10 for heart rate for instance). A lot of the reliability of these devices relies upon a tight fit as well.
For anyone remotely healthy, 100% of the time your real value will be between 95% and 99%, and there is almost no diagnostic value to it. Heart rate is actually interesting and is something you can learn from and work towards. SpO2 is just "eh...neat".
Sure, but if the value is less than 95, that does have diagnostic value (if it's accurate)
It's like heralding a G-sensor in your watch telling you that you're falling. It's likely pretty obvious already.
I've got enough mild asthma around me that we have a finger pulseox (or two cause we "lost" one and found it later) and I've started yelling at sick people to check it once in a while. Cause they don't usually think to, but sometimes it lingers and by the time they decide to go into an office, the numbers are pretty low.
Of course, we're not on the Apple bandwagon and stopped wearing watches once we got used to having pocket watches again.
[1] https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/normal-oxygen-level-so...
Normal in humans is definitely relative and medicine has tended to assume that if we average 1000 humans (in too many cases, 1000 white college age men) that's what human normal is, which is crazy even beyond obvious problems like " people normally have 1.999 legs apparently".
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_high_altitude_on_hu...
I’ve found the sensor to give stable results, with repeated measurements always within 2 percentage points.
And the results give qualitatively very reasonable data when I sleep at high altitude. The readings have a clear dependence on the elevation.
I haven’t cross checked against other meters, but my Apple Watch 9 sensor gives stable and reasonable results that match expected altitude trends. So yeah it may not be tuned to a wide enough variety of wrist types.
Out of curiosity, which band do you use?
So variability in the sensing is pretty normal, and you want to look at long-term trends rather than individual measurements.
As a result, for darker-skinned patients, oxygen saturation readings can read as normal when they are, in fact, dangerously low.
When everyone starting looking at every percentage point of their SpO2 during COVID as if it were life or death, the FDA had to remind people of this:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-brief/fda-brief-fda-warn...
You would be unable to read an accurate pulse oximeter at 80% because you would have lost consciousness. Doctors have to worry about false negatives just as much as false positives with those things.
There’s a chart somewhere in there on mean sleep so2 by elevation
It appears the patent is for "User-Worn Device for Noninvasively Measuring a Physiological Parameter of a User". So Apple is simply moving the logic to a non user-worn device - like a phone - to get around the problem. (this is my quick read / conjecture)
Here is the original patent https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/en
I mean, we don't have IR blasters on any of our personal devices anymore, and arguably it would be nice to be able to control my TV with my phone like I could with my Palm Pilot forever ago, but that's not in vogue anymore.
Also all my TVs also have apps that function as a remote control.
Interestingly enough my main TV an LG has a remote that controls the tv using RF. I don’t even know if it would work with an IR blaster.
Here in America this is part of our culture: your health gimmeck features are precisely meaningless to the court if the prosecution can prove wreckless harm on Apple's behalf.
They are explicitly not to maximize the number of people who can benefit from a product in the short term, but precisely to limit it so the inventor can make more money.
The idea being that in the long run the inventions it incentivizes outweigh the people who are limited from benefiting in the short term.
Judges aren't in the position to weigh societal benefits in each individual patent case. Your framing implies that cost-benefit tradeoff. But that's not how it works. The only question is whether a product infringes or not.
By that same logic, my landlord's interests and ownership of his property are categorically less important than allowing his tenants access to their apartments.
Which is, like, a way to structure a society, but is not the way that American society is structured.
Apple pays tons of patent fees in all sorts of areas so tons of companies. They just thought this company was small enough that they could bully them into not having to pay. When that failed, they tried to crush them and force their hand.
While I'm against software patents on principle, Apple acting like some kind of stereotypical 80s movie evil corporation infuriates me just as much.
Much like fusion that is continuously imminent though
I use a watch and wireless headphones. The iphone stays at home.
>How often do you need constant O2 readings?
You're missing the point: the fact you have the freedom to get as many readings as you like is fundamental. Who are you to decide how often I want/need them?
>What places are phones not permitted but Apple Watches are?
1. Among others: courtrooms (phones must be turned off, but no restriction on Apple Watches). Source: my appearances as an expert witness in courtrooms around the country. 2. Classrooms (phones off/Watches fine) 3. Theaters 4. In a dental chair and many, many more places.
>Obviously not as good as the original, but you should still get a constant histogram once reconnected.
But what if I can't reconnect or don't want to?
There wasn't a requirement that it be disabled on watches that had already been imported, or on watches that weren't being imported to the US.
Up to mid-2024, Costco was selling 2 separate SKUs of Apple Watch Ultra 2: watches with the blood oxygen feature and watches imported after the cutoff which were missing the feature.
A limitation of this workaround is that it only works on recent watches. If you are in the unfortunate position of getting a Series 6, 7, 8 watch replaced by Apple, they'll give you a replacement with the feature missing, and this update doesn't "fix" it..
brandonb•5mo ago
The Apple Watch hardware is otherwise the same. The back of the watch shines light of a specific wavelength into your skin and measures the reflected light. Heart rate sensing uses green (525 nm) and infrared (850–940 nm) light; blood oxygen sensing added a red light at 660 nm in 2020.
The iPhone will now calculate the ratio of absorbed red to infrared light, then apply calibration constants from experimental data to estimate blood oxygen saturation.
More detailed writeup on how the technology works is here: https://www.empirical.health/metrics/oxygen/
BallsInIt•5mo ago
sneak•5mo ago
0cf8612b2e1e•5mo ago
spogbiper•5mo ago
thebruce87m•5mo ago
spogbiper•5mo ago
FirmwareBurner•5mo ago
How people on HN can support monopolization of markets and killing of competition is beyond me, since in the end it always bites them in the ass (see recent mass layoffs in the industry), yet this lesson seems to be quickly forgotten.
johnfn•5mo ago
FuriouslyAdrift•5mo ago
jachee•5mo ago
ggreer•5mo ago
Licensed Mac clones were only available for two years (1995-1997), and discontinuing the program drove many other companies out of business, so it's hard to see how the change was a ploy to acquire a single company's assets. It seems more likely that Jobs discontinued licensing because it caused Apple to lose money.
And it looks like much of the Exponential Technologies team continued under a different name, then was bought by Apple in 2010 for $121 million.[1]
If there are other examples, can you provide one that is more recent and/or more blatant?
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/technology/28apple.html
FuriouslyAdrift•5mo ago
Then used them to negotiate a better price with Motorola, dumped their purchase contract for 'reasons' and bankrupted the company.
Exponential sued.. and won $500 million... for breach contract but were destroyed by that point. Apple gobbled up their IP for around $20 mil later on.
FuriouslyAdrift•5mo ago
ggreer•5mo ago
> This matter was settled during the fourth quarter of 1999 for an amount not material to the Company's financial position or results of operations.
If Apple did pay $500 million, I think that would have been material to the company's financial position, as their profit that year was $601M.
Again, are there any examples that are less debatable and/or more recent? I don't have a dog in this fight. But if Apple is infamous for this behavior, it seems like there would be stronger examples.
1. See page 59: https://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReportArchive...
FuriouslyAdrift•5mo ago
The original team ended up founding Intrinsity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity) and being involed with the Samsung A8 and Apple A4 designs. Apple ended up buying the company and many of those people are the ones designing their current chips. (https://touchreviews.net/apple-intrinsity-implications/)
hbn•5mo ago
0cf8612b2e1e•5mo ago
FireBeyond•5mo ago
Dylan16807•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
eddieroger•5mo ago
0cf8612b2e1e•5mo ago
jart•5mo ago
snapetom•5mo ago
It’s mindblowing how big of a gap this is for these non-tech companies. I work for a company that sold to PE. The owners walked away with the vast majority of a 1.5 billion deal.
I asked if employees were given anything. “Sure. Some got as much as 50k!” I was told.
Using some standard equity math for early engineers, I back of napkined that the 25 year tenure engineers, if they were at big tech, should have gotten low 7 figures. Nope. They got 50k out of 1.5 billion.
(No, PE had no say on how that 1.5 billion was divided up for those of you quick to blame PE.)
jart•5mo ago
eddieroger•5mo ago
FirmwareBurner•5mo ago
Massimo is 400x smaller than Apple. WTF are you talking about like they're in the same weight class?
runako•5mo ago
Their (limited) levels.fyi data does not indicate this is one of their goals.
lotsofpulp•5mo ago
I would bet Apple, and the other large publicly listed tech companies, have lifted far more employees into financial independence from employers than any other business in history.
themafia•5mo ago
They've also destroyed financial independence. They've engaged in anti-competitive and anti-poaching practices before. There's several famous examples.
Anyways, are you saying it's Apple's goal to lift employees in this way, or does it just happen to be incidental to whatever their CEO wants at the moment?
Also all the people actually _making_ those devices, surely the largest labor pool supporting their business, have zero financial independence. That's the typical western blind spot.
> from employers than any other business in history
I think that'd be the US Government and it's GI Bill. Okay, technically not a business, but if the virtue is independence, then it shouldn't matter who provided it.
FirmwareBurner•5mo ago
So doing monopolistic and illegal things is OK because it makes some people rich?
jart•5mo ago
JumpCrisscross•5mo ago
Massimo still owns the core IP. Apple owns some other IP.
> How people on HN can support monopolization of markets
There was one niche (note: still massive) provider of this technology. Now there are two, one of which is mass. Even if that collapses to one mass, that’s objectively better. More competitors and more consumer surplus is not a monopoly condition.
There is a difference between being reflexively anti-Apple regardless of the circumstances and being pro-monopoly.
mrcwinn•5mo ago
>How HN can support monopolization of markets and killing of [sic] competition is beyond me.
That suggests HN is a monoculture of some sort of united front. It is not. Diversity of opinion is best for this community (and all communities).
And, sorry, what competition was killed off here? I, as the consumer, was never considering Massimo for my blood oxygen measurement needs. I bought an Apple Watch and just want it to be as feature-full as possible. So does Apple.
yifanl•5mo ago
lovich•5mo ago
I wasn’t going to buy a device just for blood monitoring. What they produced is valuable to me as a feature of a product but not as a product in of itself
yifanl•5mo ago
jodrellblank•5mo ago
usefulcat•5mo ago
snitty•5mo ago
And I know this isn't your argument, but that's a VERY narrow market for the purposes of a US inquiry into monopolies. Like, the normal market definition fights are about whether you should be considering "premium smartphones" or "smartphones" as a whole. Or all of the grocery stores in a given region, and whether that should include convenience stores that also sell groceries.
I'd be hard pressed to imagine a court really contemplating an argument that a company has a monopoly in a very small slice of a market. It would be like saying that Rolex has a monopoly in luxury sport watches with headquarters in Geneva.
TheOtherHobbes•5mo ago
Of course in Apple's case this Masimo story is not the only monopolistic practice.
The correct analogy would be a watch market dominated by Casio and Swatch with no independent smaller brands.
Because every smaller brand that becomes somewhat successful is bought out by the Big Two. Or never gets that far because new IP somehow ends up being the sole property of the Big Two through various other means.
(Technically an oligopoly, but still maintained by monopolistic lock-ins and actions.)
lovich•5mo ago
I disagree with this framing where offering more money to employees is described with the same words used to describe stealing property
> smaller company
I mean, ok yea that’s technically true, but Masimo makes billions a year in revenue. They are not a smol bean company
odo1242•5mo ago
skybrian•5mo ago
It’s sort of like having your watch tell you whether you slept well or not. Didn’t you already know? If you think you slept well and your watch disagrees, are you going to trust its opinion over your own?
hombre_fatal•5mo ago
Also, I don't think most people are in a position where they feel like they have amazing sleep every night. Yeah, maybe those people have nothing to gain from gadgets kind of like a person at ideal weight doesn't gain anything from counting calories: but what about the rest of us?
My wrist device was critical in helping me realize how few hours I was sleeping despite being in bed with my eyes closed for 8 hours.
hdgvhicv•5mo ago
chevill•5mo ago
These apps can detect that you are moving around a lot and also detect that you are snoring (another sign of sleep apnea).
Even if you know that you snore without using a sleeping app, that doesn't really give you a picture of how bad it could be. I apparently stop breathing and sometimes start choking in my sleep.
Now that I have a diagnosis of sleep apnea sleep apps are still really helpful. If I'm still snoring, it means I probably need to adjust the pressure on my CPAP machine. If the app for my CPAP machine tells me that I'm having a lot of episodes over the course of the night, I might need to adjust the pressure or the fit of the mask.
sleep apps have probably literally saved lives.
hombre_fatal•5mo ago
1. The heart rate line graph during my sleep made me realize just how bad exercise within 6 hours of bed is. My resting heart rate is 43bpm, yet if I exercise, I'll try to sleep at 60bpm that slowly decreases to 45bpm over 4-6 hours. And it always coincides with worse sleep.
2. I realized how often my HR jumps during sleep. Turns out I have a deviated septum that got bad enough in my 30s to regularly block breathing. I thought I had sleep apnea that would require a CPAP but it turns out I just need nasal strips. No more problems.
3. If you see you have bad sleep, you can now ask the question "how do I improve my sleep?" If you don't know you have bad sleep because you think you're sleeping 8 hours, then you don't realize you have levers to pull.
nopenopeyup•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
meindnoch•5mo ago
itake•5mo ago
soperj•5mo ago
krferriter•5mo ago
scarface_74•5mo ago
blizdiddy•5mo ago
geodel•5mo ago
If in their world view "best developer salary is not always the best thing" one could have better reasoning for supporting little guy Massimo getting crushed by Apple.
FireBeyond•5mo ago
The employees made out better - good for them. That's a lot easier to do when you have a market cap 400 times higher than that of the company you made all these promises to, and then left holding the bag.
burnerthrow008•5mo ago
FireBeyond•5mo ago
I thought I was pretty clear that I felt the outcome for the employees was positive and that Apple's actions were actively deceptive. It was clear in the trial that Apple had zero intention of collaboration, licensing, or patent sharing and just used that as a pretense to "get in the room" and see who showed up on Masimo's side so they knew who to target with competing offers.
burnerthrow008•5mo ago
meindnoch•5mo ago
scarface_74•5mo ago
to11mtm•5mo ago
One of the biggest pain points I have had with the 'smartphone revolution' post Android/iOS is that almost every wearable/pocketable is a watch. nobody's trying new formats that could be useful!
anabab•5mo ago
There are smart rings and smart glasses on the market. Some fitness trackers have a necklace mode or can be put on shoe laces.
Watches are most popular likely because they are probably the most widespread accessory people already use.
HDThoreaun•5mo ago
raw_anon_1111•5mo ago
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/
They were hired for their expertise. Do you want to start enforcing non competes in California?
nkrisc•5mo ago
Probably a net-negative.
FireBeyond•5mo ago
So good for the employees, but I wouldn't be applauding Apple for their outright deceptions here.
hsbauauvhabzb•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
hsbauauvhabzb•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
hsbauauvhabzb•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
hsbauauvhabzb•5mo ago
adrr•5mo ago
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
malcolmgreaves•5mo ago
mensetmanusman•5mo ago
jen20•5mo ago
throwawayxcmz•5mo ago
haswell•5mo ago
Whether you like this or not, the practice of hiring employees specifically to work on the same thing elsewhere or to drain a company of its talent - is called poaching.
It’s often legal, but can be controversial especially when it’s a behemoth raiding smaller shops.
You seem to be offended by the word itself, but it’s just a useful descriptor to differentiate between different types of hiring scenarios.
I’ve been poached before, and it worked out great for me.
ekianjo•5mo ago
if your IP is just lines on a patent you dont really have much moat in the first place.
throwawayxcmz•5mo ago
schiffern•5mo ago
Tomorrow's innovations in consumer electronics won't get funding as investors balk at the risk of getting Massimo'd.
TheOtherHobbes•5mo ago
wat10000•5mo ago
brewdad•5mo ago
I mean, get that money, but don't expect that you can make a career out of being poached repeatedly. If you're really that good, you probably could have done better working for yourself.
wat10000•5mo ago
TheOtherHobbes•5mo ago
wat10000•5mo ago
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
What’s meaningful is that Apple was hiring them because of the work they did for Massimo and doing so en masse at a single point of time.
If they had just hired experts on blood monitoring to staff a team and some of them happened to be working for Massimo before, it would just be hiring as usual and not described as poaching.
wat10000•5mo ago
“Employees are entirely accessory” is exactly the shit I’m arguing against here. The whole idea of “poaching” implies that the employees are property, to be guarded by their owners and stolen by others. How can the people who actually do the work and are the entire reason for this so-called “poaching” not be central to it?
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
Once again, poaching describes the comportment of a company towards another. It’s not a statement regarding the morality of accepting of rejecting the offer from the point of view of the employee. It doesn’t in any way implies that employees are the property of a company.
The issue is not about whether or not employees are central to work. That much is obvious. The issue is that building a talented team and putting in place the condition for it to properly work is a significant cost. That’s why it’s generally illegal for another company to just come and rehire everyone wholesale.
The issue is not even hiring talents from another company. The issue is that it’s targeted. They are not hired because they are extremely talented. They are hired because they work for Massimo and will bring trade secrets with them.
I’m sure the Apple of this world would like it being completely legal a lot. It would basically put a damper on any small companies trying to compete with them if they could just come and buy out the team of any potential threat to their hegemony.
wat10000•5mo ago
Er, what? Can you elaborate on what makes this illegal?
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
wat10000•5mo ago
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
wat10000•5mo ago
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
If a company lift a whole team in a short span of time, it gets really hard to argue there is no misappropriation.
wat10000•5mo ago
goyagoji•5mo ago
Hamuko•5mo ago
Didn't Apple settle an anti-poaching lawsuit?
omgwtfbyobbq•5mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
wat10000•5mo ago
haswell•5mo ago
What makes you believe this? The definition of “poach” is not intrinsically linked to the notion of ownership/property.
The word has several definitions, one of which describes a method of preparing eggs (and others that clearly distinguish between things like illegally killing animals, hiring practices, etc).
It doesn’t make sense to me to take the definition that has nothing to do with employment and attach the weight/meaning of that unrelated definition to hiring practices.
Put another way, it would be silly to say “poaching is a horrible term to use for this because it implies that employees are eggs that can be cooked and eaten”. I find the consternation about hiring terminology here to be about the same.
wat10000•5mo ago
My quibble isn’t really with the terminology. It’s with the idea that hiring another company’s employees is somehow bad. It’s perfectly fine. It’s good for employees. It’s only bad for employers who want to suppress wages. The fact that it’s called “poaching” is just a reflection of the idea that it’s bad.
haswell•5mo ago
This is not obvious to me at all, nor have I ever conflated the two in my mind. Hell, the literal dictionary disagrees with you.
But beyond this, language evolves. There are many examples of words used today that bear very little resemblance to their original roots.
The thing I find curious is that you recognize immediately that eggs are unrelated to hiring employees, but refuse to acknowledge that shooting animals is also entirely unrelated to hiring employees.
> My quibble isn’t really with the terminology.
That’s not what you said above: “I’m saying that “poaching” is a horrible term for that action”.
> It’s with the idea that hiring another company’s employees is somehow bad. It’s perfectly fine.
Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s not. I’ve been poached. It worked out well for me.
But hopefully you can recognize that not all scenarios are equal.
> It’s only bad for employers who want to suppress wages.
When a massive conglomerate poaches entire teams to crush competition, those wages aren’t gonna be around very long. In some (not all) circumstances, it’s anti-competitive and when examined in the context of the whole, is not guaranteed to be good for employees in the long run.
> The fact that it’s called “poaching” is just a reflection of the idea that it’s bad.
Again, this is the weight you are attaching to the word. The word holds no such weight in my mind nor have I ever encountered a person in my 20+ year career prior to this thread who was upset by it. This is a you thing.
wat10000•5mo ago
It should be pretty obvious. “Poaching” employees has negative connotations. It’s seen as something illicit. If you do a search for the term, just about every single result will be some page discussing whether or not it’s illegal, and the ethics around it. It is directly analogous to poaching animals and people clearly think there are potential ethical problems with it, to the extent that people think it might even be against the law.
haswell•5mo ago
This is missing the point. No business person is using the word “poach” in the context of hiring is conflating it with hunting animals. People describing the act of poaching employees are not somehow contributing to the idea that employees are property.
These are imaginary concerns being projected. Words only have the meaning we collectively assign them, and again, if you’re assigning some kind of “employees are animals to be hunted” association, that is something you are doing, not something that is broadly accepted.
Humorously, you’re doing more to attach harmful connotations in this thread than 20 years of interacting with thousands of people in the corporate world, and I can honestly say that this thread is the first time in my 40 years of living that I’ve encountered someone who seems to conflate these entirely unrelated things. If you are concerned about people making this conflation, one of the most effective ways of preventing that would be to stop spreading the idea that the two things are related - an idea that I guarantee has not occurred to many people until they found this discussion.
> people clearly think there are potential ethical problems with it, to the extent that people think it might even be against the law
Yes. Emphasis on the word potential. Poaching employees may be unethical, but to your point, is controversial because that’s not always true.
You still have not articulated why you believe it’s appropriate to act as if those present ethical concerns (or lack thereof) have anything to do with hunting animals or the definition of a word that does not apply to this context.
The English language is filled with words that have similarly evolved, and people use those words daily without causing harm. If you can demonstrate (with evidence) why you believe this word causes appreciable real world harm, I’m willing to consider it.
Thus far, your argument can be summed up as “I find it offensive”. And that is simply not compelling.
wat10000•5mo ago
> Thus far, your argument can be summed up as “I find it offensive”. And that is simply not compelling.
Do not confuse your lack of understanding or agreement for a lack of substance. You don’t have to see things my way, but my argument is not even remotely accurately summarized that way.
Here is an actually accurate summary: there’s nothing wrong with hiring other companies’ employees, commonly referred to as “poaching.” It’s commonly frowned upon (see multiple examples in these comments) but it’s just free association, and the idea that it’s bad is ridiculous. All that idea does is help to suppress wages by reducing competition among employers. And this ridiculous notion that “poaching” employees is bad is reflected in the common term used to describe it.
You’re focusing on entirely the wrong thing here. The meaning of the word “poaching” is merely illustrative of the problem I have, it’s not the problem itself. The actual problem is the attitude that employees somehow belong to their employers such that it might be improper to entice them away.
haswell•5mo ago
I find it interesting that you used the language "other companies' employees". Isn't this even more problematic than referring to such a practice as poaching? You went from "the word poaching is bad because it implies X" to something that directly indicates ownership (possessive form). I'm not trying to
More to the point: no, hiring people who currently work for other companies is not commonly referred to as "poaching". This is a one-dimensional framing at best (most hiring is organic), and disingenuous at worst (I can't imagine you believe that sentence to be true). I think you probably agree from the context here that a specific kind of hiring is referred to as poaching.
We can agree or disagree about whether that specific kind of hiring is good or bad, but it exists, and generally has characteristics that are not like "normal" hiring. People call it "poaching" to distinguish it from other non-controversial scenarios. What you're arguing here implies we should pretend such controversy doesn't exist.
For sake of argument, you could call this "schmoogling" employees (or whatever you want) if you hate the word "poach", at which point it would still be just as controversial because the underlying behavior is still occurring regardless of the language used.
People would still disagree on whether such behavior is good or bad, and absolutely nothing was gained by not saying they were "poached".
I can accept that we disagree on the universal "goodness" of the hiring practice known as poaching. What makes zero sense to me is arguing that the terminology we use to describe such practices is somehow part of the problem. And if your goal is to change how people view hiring practices, getting people to use different words doesn't change their underlying views. Bottom line: the line of argument you're using doesn't move the conversation in the direction you want it to because it's disconnected from the underlying reality. Policing speech is not the way to change people's minds.
We'll have to agree to disagree and I'm done here (not much else to say). But I hope you have a good Saturday.
wat10000•5mo ago
The terminology isn’t the problem, the terminology is a result of the problem, which is disturbingly widespread acceptance of some degree of conceptual ownership of employees. If we called it schmoogling I obviously couldn’t point out the unfortunate implication of the term but that wouldn’t materially change my point. You are FAR too focused on the specific word.
I know I was pointing out the implication of the term, but it’s more about the existence of any term for this.
haswell•5mo ago
To be clear, I'm very against any kind of implied "ownership" and believe employees should have autonomy/freedom to work where they want. My primary contention is with the idea that all types of hiring are equal. There are clear and obvious differences between different hiring scenarios whether we want them to exist or not. This isn't up for debate; it is the underlying reality playing out whether we acknowledge and label it or not (this is separate from whether such a thing should exist, i.e. I'm pointing out an is, not an ought).
> You are FAR too focused on the specific word.
To be fair (and you acknowledged this), you started the conversation about that word. The substance of my argument is that the word is not something we should be concerned about. Turning this back around on me being too focused on the word is...an interesting choice.
I do find it frustrating and puzzling that once I shared a strong argument for why the focus on terminology at the beginning of this thread was misplaced, you clarified that this isn't what you're actually talking about.
C'est la vie.
burnerthrow008•5mo ago
My dictionary gives this definition for "poaching":
1. to trespass for the purpose of stealing game
2. to appropriate (something) as one's own
You cannot "steal" or "appropriate" something which is not property or which cannot be owned. You are being very disingenuous to say that the word is not intrinsically linked to ownership or property.
haswell•5mo ago
Just one example, but current dictionaries cover the business use of the word (among many others), e.g. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/poach
> You are being very disingenuous to say that the word is not intrinsically linked to ownership or property.
Are you claiming that other definitions of “poach” do not exist? If you are, you are misinformed. If you are not, you are misunderstanding the word “intrinsic”.
aikinai•5mo ago
StopDisinfo910•5mo ago
Abuse of the patent system can be deeply problematic. This is not one of them. This is one of the richest company in the world stealing the work paid by another.
nailer•5mo ago
twobitshifter•5mo ago
_Algernon_•5mo ago
Employees aren't animals in the forest where the king has the sole right to hunt them for sport.
haswell•5mo ago
And when this is done for the sole purpose of acquiring a specific kind of talent - especially to build exactly the same thing - it’s called poaching.
The word “poach” is used in numerous ways and describes many things that have nothing to do with hunting for sport [0]. I think it’s a bit problematic to hold on to a singular definition here that clearly does not apply to the situation.
- [0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/poach
GuB-42•5mo ago
But it was cheaper to Apple to just hire a few key people and screwing over everyone else.
Good or bad depends on how Massimo compare to Apple. Which one of the two offers the most growth potential. If Apple just keep the employees long enough to steal the tech before laying the off, not building on it, then it is terrible for all but Apple shareholders. If Apple "saved" these employees from an exploitative company, providing the with growth potential and further development then it is a good thing.
ls-a•5mo ago
lan321•5mo ago
If Masimo wanted to, they'd have offered them the same or more to keep them, but they didn't. I don't believe an employer has any right to expect other companies not to offer positions to their employees. Employees should not be kept in the dark on opportunities for better pay and conditions because you can't or don't want to fight that offer.
realityking•5mo ago
That said, a patent whose primary claim seems to be (based on the workaround) _where_ the processing takes place (ant not _how_) seems like exactly the kinda thing that shouldn‘t be patentable.
lan321•5mo ago
ToDougie•5mo ago
OkayPhysicist•5mo ago
gibolt•5mo ago
Not arguing Apple shouldn't poach, just that your suggestion doesn't work.
OkayPhysicist•5mo ago
lotsofpulp•5mo ago
https://companiesmarketcap.com/masimo/earnings/
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MASI/masimo/net-in...
runako•5mo ago
boringg•5mo ago
scarface_74•5mo ago
Should I be treating my employer “like family” and care about “the mission”?
hu3•5mo ago
JustExAWS•5mo ago
Dayshine•5mo ago
JustExAWS•5mo ago
But you are coming awfully close to advocating for non competes which is explicitly not allowed in CA.
lurk2•5mo ago
JustExAWS•5mo ago
Dylan16807•5mo ago
And even if you do look at this like an acquisition, acquisitions are almost always not anticompetitive.
tshaddox•5mo ago
arcfour•5mo ago
do_not_redeem•5mo ago
JustExAWS•5mo ago
We like software patents now?
do_not_redeem•5mo ago
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10912502B2/
lovich•5mo ago
It seems like Masimo wasn’t bullied because they had less money. They decided to run to the government to protect them instead of doing actual competition
runako•5mo ago
The company does $2B in revenue and spends close to $800 million annually in sales, general and admin. This is over 3x their R&D budget. (For reference, Apple's R&D spend is higher than its SG&A spend.)
Per levels.fyi, Masimo is paying senior SDEs in HCOL $150k. They could 10x the comp to these critical employees without it being more than a rounding error in their numbers. (I don't think they would have had to go to 10x. Most people would practically tattoo a brand on themselves for a one-time bonus of $1m.)
Long story short: Masimo does indeed have the money to compete on salary with Apple for this set of employees. They chose to spend the money on attorneys instead.
Some companies don't value engineers. That often works, until they end up in an engineering competition against companies that do value engineers.
boringg•5mo ago
runako•5mo ago
Could Apple go higher? Sure, but again most people who like their jobs are not going to leave once their needs are met.
From a competitive standpoint: Masimo has lost $8B in market cap during this kerfuffle. It's entirely possible it would have been rational for Masimo to pay these employees higher than Apple possibly would go in order to not lose those billions in value.
eitally•5mo ago
runako•5mo ago
My core point is is that Masimo has far more than enough money to pay strategic employees enough money to keep them. Again, I doubt they would have to go as high as $5m/year for each of the relevant engineers. Masimo could spend that without making a major dent in their finances.
Could Apple up the ante and make offers of $5B/yr to each engineer? Sure, but we are likely talking about the difference between Masimo offering $150k and Apple offering $500k. These are numbers any public company can afford.
richiebful1•5mo ago
[1]. https://www.masimo.com/products/monitors/masimo-w1-medical-w...
FireBeyond•5mo ago
It was literally described in the page you referenced: "Arm your patients with continuous measurements in a comfortable, lifestyle-friendly wearable—helping you deliver a true telemonitoring experience."
> automates the collection of clinically accurate measurements to help support: -Post-surgical recovery -Chronic care -Patient management
I say "was" because it was possible to buy it as a consumer, but there's still no direct competition, as:
"Please note that all Masimo consumer products have been discontinued. These include:
MightySat® Masimo W1® Sport Watch Opioid Halo™ / Masimo SafetyNet Alert™ Radius T°® Continuous Thermometer Masimo Stork® Vitals, Masimo Stork Vitals+, and Masimo Stork Baby Monitor"
OkayPhysicist•5mo ago
adrianN•5mo ago
Workaccount2•5mo ago
A better way to give employees a share of the profits is to give them shares of the company. But then that also comes at the expense of compensation in dollars. You cannot pay for groceries with company shares.
People really like the idea of "When you win, I get money, when you lose, you lose money". Explained like that they agree it's bad, but explained like "Companies should be distributing profits to workers" they fall over themselves about how good of an idea it is.
Running a business is a gamble and like gambling, you need to put skin in the game to get a share of winnings (and lose your skin in the losses). People are just hyper-focused on the winners.
wahnfrieden•5mo ago
lovich•5mo ago
If company X is making a profit and losing employees to a competitor paying more, then company X has effectively chosen to let that happen. They don’t get to complain that they ate their cake and don’t have it anymore.
Dylan16807•5mo ago
It's not bad, it's a cost.
You obviously wouldn't make a deal like that in isolation. You also wouldn't give someone a salary for nothing. But a cost like that can be worth paying just like a salary is worth paying. (Obviously you'd have limits on the numbers, just like salary is limited.)
Workaccount2•5mo ago
People think that profits should be distributed on top of salary. And frankly it already happens to a degree with bonuses. But there is this pervasive idea that any leftover profit is just money that should have gone to workers.
Dylan16807•5mo ago
Distributing part of the profits would be a reasonable benefit.
There are hundreds of millions of profits here. Distributing even 10% of that to employees would be a tremendous amount of money. Even a lot less would have a big effect.
A 10% profit share makes plenty of sense. Yes, even while insulating employees from losses, it still makes sense. Owners need to be able to reap profit but they don't need to get all of it forever. Employees owning stock is not the only way profit sharing can work.
HumblyTossed•5mo ago
dmitrygr•5mo ago
HumblyTossed•5mo ago
ryandrake•5mo ago
There is a market rate for talent, and if you can't afford the market rate, then you don't get the talent.
missingcolours•5mo ago
terminalshort•5mo ago
hu3•5mo ago
the sensible thing would be to license the tech
soperj•5mo ago
7thpower•5mo ago
geodel•5mo ago
DesiLurker•5mo ago
DesiLurker•5mo ago
scarface_74•5mo ago
I see no issue. Would you have preferred what happened in the Jobs era where 7 of the largest tech firms colluded not to hire from each other’s company?
Teever•5mo ago
Because they hobbled competitors and innovation then they're able to do it now.
It's really hard to determine how detrimental their actions have been to the job market for software engineers.
It is entirely possible that every software engineer is worse off because Apple severely distorted the market and prevented many competitors from growing to be competitors to Apple and what ever offer Apple made to these people pales to what they could be making if Jobs hadn't done what he did.
JustExAWS•5mo ago
How is all Apple’s fault? And are you really saying that the iPhone wouldn’t have happened if Apple hadn’t gotten into these agreements?
In your alternate universe would Nokia or Rim (who wasn’t involved in the agreement) still been relevant?
Teever•5mo ago
That collusion between these big companies to deny their employees a wage driven by free markets allowed those companies to accrue wealth and prevent competition from forming.
That's terrible for their employees, that's terrible for the consumer.
scarface_74•5mo ago
Alternatively, if hypothetically without the collusion do you think the upper wage pressure would I have materially affected those companies bottom lines to not create the products that made them profitable?
Teever•5mo ago
And you're right, there's a distinct possibility the savings that they made in breaking the law could have affected their bottom line at the time in a way that prevented them from making certain products, but it could have also fostered creativity and innovation in the companies that colluded, and increased competition between them and the new companies that would have formed in a way that would have benefited innovation.
What's important is that companies don't break the law and that people are paid as much as they're worth so that they can in turn stimulate the economy in ways that they see fit.
scarface_74•5mo ago
But now are you also saying that Apple did the right thing when they paid Masimo’s employees more so now they can stimulate the economy and in the future start companies?
Teever•5mo ago
Apple broke the law because they felt that it was in their best interest to the detriment of others and they will likely continue to do so if they feel it is in their best interest.
scarface_74•5mo ago
But since when have people making BigTech money been afraid to venture out on their own to found a startup and would 30% more (completely made up number) and that was probably tied up in RSUs and not cash really made a difference?
Shouldn’t the idea that these people were making less than market wages spur them to go to other companies besides those seven or venture off on their own?
Teever•5mo ago
As to your other points these things are not a binary, they are a gradient with Apple and the companies they colluding with having an incremental effect on the market that accrues over time as they consolidate wealth and restrict competition and the innovation that comes from it.
It is difficult for people to find jobs at other companies that don't exist or that are floundering because apple and others have illegally restricted the flow of capital that would spur their creation.
It seems from your line of questioning that you don't consider the criminal collusion that Apple and others participated in to be detrimental to the software industry and consumers as a whole.
Is that a fair assessment of your opinion? Can you expand on your opinion regarding this matter?
scarface_74•5mo ago
It’s the same as the Windsurf situation with Google. In other words, I don’t care that Masimo was hurt because employees took a better deal from Apple.
As far as did it hurt the industry, there is really no logical argument that these companies who were already extremely profitable roundly have had the money to invest in their products if they hadn’t suppressed wages, that some new challenger was going to come along and compete with any of them if Microsoft (search and mobile phones) and Facebook (mobile phones couldn’t).
These employees weren’t going to take the extra money they made an invest in some world changing startup (that’s what VCs are for) that would pay more than BigTech. 50-70K wouldn’t be the determining factor to invest in their own startup.
The startup offers I was getting to be a “CTO” [1] (yes it would have been a laughably inflated title) was less than I was making as a mid level employee at AWS at the time (2020-2023) for more work and more risks.
[1] I didn’t go in AWS as a software developer, I went in working in Professional Services. But my previous experience was strategy and architecture at a couple of startups.
alistairSH•5mo ago
Apple has a massive war chest they can leverage to crush competition in several ways. As a nation and as consumers, we should at least be wary of what they're doing and whether it stifles competition or innovation. Even if the actions are legal.
There's a difference between Apple paying more for engineers in general vs Apple specifically targeting a competitor, acquiring all the talent from that competitor, then using the IP that talent brought to roll out substantially the same product.
scarface_74•5mo ago
Every company that proactively reaches out to an employed individual is doing so because that employee has demonstrated elsewhere and probably at their current job skills and experience that they find valuable and I assume is willing to make a better offer for them.
Other posters said that Masimo was paying developers $140K - $180k. That’s a nothingburger for good developers. The BigTech company I was working for two years ago was offering returning interns about that much in cash + liquid RSUs
I once worked for a startup where everyone loved the CTO, the startup got acquired after I left by a PE company.
When he left to be the CTO of another company in the same vertical, 10 of the employees followed him within the next six months basically taking all of the developers and sales that he wanted and all of the worthwhile staff from the startup. I assume it was for more money.
If I had still been at the startup when he left, he would have easily “poached” me too?
Should that also have been illegal? Was that unethical?
0x457•5mo ago
nradov•5mo ago
0x457•5mo ago
burnerthrow008•5mo ago
QuinnyPig•5mo ago
vkou•5mo ago
jajuuka•5mo ago
MangoToupe•5mo ago
Obviously the people who suffer are customers. There isn't a single instance where IP helps them.
adrr•5mo ago
Travesty is the ITC is allowed to block imports without going to court. Banning imports shouldn't be done by some government institution and should be handled by the court system.
terminalshort•5mo ago
burnerthrow008•5mo ago
wyldfire•5mo ago
"anti-poaching" is how big tech companies described their anti-competitive agreements [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
jajuuka•5mo ago
This isn't a case of "they went looking for a better job". Have you done zero reading on this story?
anonu•5mo ago
Disposal8433•5mo ago
Edit: I've always hated patents too, don't get me wrong.
johndhi•5mo ago
cmiles74•5mo ago
Few tears will be shed for Massimo (or Qualcomm) but the next victim could be a much smaller company, maybe one that would be more of a competitor. I don't like the current patent regime but I do believe enforcement should apply to everyone, not just players who lack the money to rig the game.
zik•5mo ago
Angostura•5mo ago
Sorry, maybe I missed it - but source for this?
chedabob•5mo ago
> sensor data from the Blood Oxygen app on Apple Watch will be measured and calculated on the paired iPhone
clint•5mo ago
unglaublich•5mo ago
spogbiper•5mo ago
mbirth•5mo ago
raldi•5mo ago
Zee2•5mo ago
robertoandred•5mo ago
shagie•5mo ago
These fall into the classification of design patent which covers ornamental non-functional elements of a particular item. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
Design patents also cover typefaces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti... -- note that typefaces cannot be copyrighted in the United States
Design patents differ from a utility patent which covers how something works.
Dylan16807•5mo ago
bdowling•5mo ago
rootsudo•5mo ago
BugsJustFindMe•5mo ago
kube-system•5mo ago
abirch•5mo ago
extraduder_ire•5mo ago
I still don't think it's a valid patent.
alooPotato•5mo ago
ilyagr•5mo ago