A 2006 email exchange between Google and Apple has resurfaced, revealing how closely the two technology companies managed senior employee moves at a time when Apple was preparing to enter the mobile phone market.

On March 28, 2006, Alan Eustace, then Google’s senior vice president of engineering, contacted Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs about hiring Jean-Marie Hullot, a French engineer who had served as CTO of Apple’s applications division.

Google wanted Hullot to lead a small engineering centre in Paris. But before proceeding, Eustace sought Jobs’ approval, with Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page and advisor Bill Campbell copied on the exchange.

Eustace told Jobs that Hullot had agreed to honour his contractual non-solicitation and non-compete obligations. He also stressed that Hullot remained strongly attached to Apple and would not want to harm the company.

Google was prepared to abandon the hiring plan if Jobs believed it could damage the relationship between the two companies.

Steve Jobs questioned the project

Jobs took 11 days to respond. His main concern was what Hullot would actually be developing in Paris.

“We would have a problem if it is related to cell phone handsets, etc,” Jobs wrote in his April 9 response.

The question was particularly significant given the timing. Apple would unveil the original iPhone roughly nine months later, while Hullot had reportedly been among the executives pushing Apple toward developing a mobile phone.

After receiving an explanation about the proposed work, Jobs approved the arrangement the following day.

The agreement quickly became complicated.

On April 25, Eustace informed Jobs that Hullot wanted to bring four engineers who had previously worked with him at Apple’s Paris office. Eustace again offered to abandon the plan if Jobs objected.

Jobs responded that Google should “strongly prefer not to hire these guys.”

Google subsequently decided not to establish the Paris engineering centre. Hullot did not join the company.

Instead, he went on to create the photo-focused startup Fotonauts, which later became associated with Fotopedia. Hullot died in 2019.

Emails later featured in US antitrust case

The correspondence gained wider importance years later when the emails became part of the public record in a major antitrust lawsuit involving technology companies.

The case, In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, involved allegations that Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe had entered into agreements restricting employee recruitment between the companies. Plaintiffs argued that such arrangements reduced competition for skilled workers and suppressed wages.

Around 64,000 technology employees were part of the class action.

A proposed settlement of $324.5 million was initially rejected by US District Judge Lucy Koh, who considered it insufficient. A revised settlement worth $415 million was approved in September 2015, amounting to roughly $5,770 per worker.

The 2006 correspondence involving Jobs and Google executives became one of the pieces of evidence examined in the broader dispute over employee hiring practices.

The emails have since attracted renewed attention because they provide a rare look at the extent to which senior executives at major technology companies discussed employee recruitment directly.

The exchange also offers a snapshot of the competitive environment in Silicon Valley just months before Apple introduced the iPhone and began reshaping the mobile phone industry.