This is a good thing. It increases salaries for everyone. If Apple can make more money with your ideas than Massimo, why shouldn't they be allowed to pay you more?
Not always and not for everyone. Follow me: Currently there are two players in this space competing for talent, Apple and Massimo. This competition results in higher wages and more innovation. What do you think will happen to wages and innovation if Apple just guts Massimo(or any other company) and now there's only one player on the market, Apple? Now Apple can pay you whatever they want because you have nowhere else to go.
How do I know this? Because years and years ago, two major semiconductor companies had offices in my home town. And workers would get pay raises by jumping ship between the two. A few years ago, one of the bigger corps. bought the other smaller one becoming an even bigger behemoth, so the offices had to merge, leading to layoffs in the name of cutting the redundant jobs and "optimizing efficiency". What do you think happened to the wages at the new giant company? Did they go up or not?
So, I question the thought process of HNers who support that Apple crushing a smaller player out of a market somehow leads to higher salaries for everyone. If you want higher salaries, you need more players in that market, not one giant monopolist. This isn't Apple vs some equal Goliath like Google or Microsoft who can afford to fight fire with fire.
Masimo made investments into R&D. They payed salaries to researchers to create new products and got awarded a patent for that investment. If the employees knew they were onto something big, they should've started a company or negotiated higher salaries before the patent was filed. If you want the reward, you have to take the risk.
Apple sits on heaps of cash and could have done the same.
Hands down the worst take I've read here in a long time and there have been some doozies.
Aside from the detailed rebuttal someone already gave, can you explain in this world of higher salaries what incentive any company not named Apple/Google/Microsoft would have to bother doing R&D if the big boys can just come in and steal your IP and talent?
