Reportedly, during Google CEO Eric Schmidt's time on Apple’s board of directors, the two companies honored an unwritten agreement not to hire away each other’s workers. This agreement was considered non-official, but it was well-known and followed within the recruitment division of Google and Apple.
Again, all this deal stated was that Google would not go after Apple employees, and vice versa. An important point was that employees of both companies were free to apply to the other company on their own. Only a small difference, it changes the game a bit as poaching is considered an important component of healthy competition in the market. Courtesy of techcrunch.com
