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The Traitorous Eight

On September 18, 1957, eight young scientists and engineers resigned together from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Among them were Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore and Eugene Kleiner. With money from Sherman Fairchild’s Fairchild Camera and Instrument, they formed Fairchild Semiconductor. They wanted to build transistors “the way they wanted to, not the way Shockley decreed.” They became known as the “traitorous eight.” Nobody knows who first used the name.

Fairchild in turn led to dozens of new companies, called the “Fairchildren.” In 1968 Noyce and Moore left Fairchild to found Intel. In 1972 Kleiner co-founded the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins.

Clients Are Not Property

The American Bar Association’s Model Rule 5.6 says a lawyer may not offer or make an agreement “that restricts the right of a lawyer to practice after termination of the relationship.” The official comment explains why. Such an agreement “not only limits their professional autonomy but also limits the freedom of clients to choose a lawyer.” Massachusetts uses the same wording in its own rules.

On December 4, 2019, the ABA’s Formal Opinion 489 said it in four words: “Clients are not property.” When a lawyer moves to another firm, both the lawyer and the old firm may tell the clients. Then the clients decide. They can stay with the firm, follow the lawyer, or go elsewhere.

The Race for the Phones

In the film Jerry Maguire (1996), written and directed by Cameron Crowe, the sports agent Jerry Maguire is fired from his agency. His colleague Bob Sugar delivers the news. Then both men start calling the athletes on Jerry’s list. Jerry wants to keep them as his own clients. Sugar wants to keep them with the agency.

Jerry turns to the office and asks who will come with him. Only one colleague, Dorothy Boyd, says yes. Jerry ends up with a single client, Rod Tidwell.

The Broker Protocol

In August 2004 three large Wall Street firms, Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch and UBS, signed the Protocol for Broker Recruiting. A broker who moves from one signing firm to another may take a short list of facts about the clients he or she personally served: name, address, phone number, email address and account title. Nothing else may be taken.

In 2018 Paul Reilly, the CEO of Raymond James Financial, explained the idea. Clients, he said, have a right to know where their adviser is and to choose their advisers.

Morgan Stanley left the agreement in late 2017, and UBS and Citigroup left at the end of that year. In 2018 more than 1,500 smaller firms were still part of it.

The PayPal Mafia

In 2002 eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion. “Most of PayPal’s key employees left eBay, but they stayed in touch,” Fortune wrote in November 2007. For the magazine, a group of them posed at a San Francisco bar in gold chains and tracksuits. They even had a name for themselves: the PayPal mafia.

Former PayPal employees went on to found YouTube and LinkedIn, and to fund Yelp and other companies. “Today they call upon one another when they need money or advice,” Fortune wrote. Reid Hoffman, who started LinkedIn, told NPR in 2012: “When each of us started companies, we’d talk to each other.”

The Vocabulary of Leaving

Jump ship. To jump ship is to leave one company for another.

Move on. A person who moves on leaves a job. The phrase carries no blame.

Job hopper. This is someone who changes jobs often.

Poach. To poach is to hire someone away from another company.

Free agent. This is a person who is not tied to any employer.

Hired gun. This is an expert who is brought in for one job.

Golden handcuffs. These are pay or benefits that make it costly to leave.

Don’t burn your bridges. Leave on good terms, because you may need these people again.

The Strength of Weak Ties

In 1973 the sociologist Mark Granovetter published “The Strength of Weak Ties.” He had asked professional, technical and managerial workers near Boston how they found their jobs. Of those who found a job through a personal contact, 16.7 percent saw that contact often. Most saw the contact only occasionally or rarely.

“It is remarkable that people receive crucial information from individuals whose very existence they have forgotten.”

The recruiter call

American professionals in many fields receive unsolicited approaches regularly, and taking the call is normal, expected and not disloyal. The external market is present in working life continuously rather than at moments of change.

Staying marketable

Stay marketable. Keep your résumé current. Always be networking. Your network is your net worth.

American career advice, given as a permanent instruction rather than as something to do when looking. Security is described as a property of the individual, maintained continuously.