Tesla Grabs 150 Apple Employees
News broke out a few days ago that Tesla Motors CEO and chief architect, Elon Musk, recently cherry-picked 150 of Apples employees. Of the 150, many of them were engineers, human resource officers, and legal counsel. So, what does this mean for both companies? Well, that depends on which part of each company is being talked about.
Internal Employees Up until a few years ago, many of the major companies (Apple, Tesla, Google, Adobe, etc.) had an unwritten agreement to keep wages stagnant in the more competitive fields of engineering for the sole purpose of preventing each company from poaching employees from their competitors. With Tesla’s latest move, it’s clear that the agreement is off, at least as far as Musk is concerned. However, there’s good reason to assume that the others aren’t far behind.
Apple is often lauded for how well it treats its employees. The company has always worked to promote from within and has rigorous standards during its hiring process. Not that Tesla is any slouch when it comes to hiring. So, for Tesla to reach in and plunk 150 former Apple employees away, it would take quite a lucrative offer. What this signals is that Tesla is looking to expand more within the realm of computing, especially with the hiring of engineers and human resource. In fact, they might be trying to develop a completely new department complete with the capability of patenting concepts and ideas.
For the next few years, salaries and benefits for engineers, legal staff, and human resources are about to see a nice increase for both Apple and Tesla, and the other major players in the business will have to come close to matching to stay competitive.
Consumer Products Apple has been losing ground lately with its iPhone sales. Not that it’s at risk of not making a profit. The company just hasn’t produced anything relatively new within the last few years that has encouraged growth within the company.
Alternatively, Tesla has explored new grounds within the automotive department (not to mention Musk’s other ventures with SpaceX.) Speculation points to Tesla looking to stay competitive with Google’s attempts to make self-driving cars, or developing better programs for unmanned flights. It doesn’t take much to make the jump to the conclusion that Tesla might be ramping up to hit the automotive market even heavier in the next decade. Meanwhile, Apple will have to find people to replace the high level of talent that just left, which is either good or bad for the company. After all, the company has been great at hiring from within, and maybe new idea and fresh concepts will help bring even more innovative consumer products to Apple customers.
Jonah Engler is a Financial Expert based in New York City. A full time stock broker, franchise owner, coffee lover and investor; Engler helps startup businesses and franchise’s grow through smart financial planning.