Depressed wages are the whole point. The no-poach collusion is there to prevent the companies involved from being in a position where they need to make a counteroffer to retain their talent.
Counteroffers once an employee has mentioned a plan to leave are so fraught with morale issues that many managers recommend against them no matter what. And auctions suck for buyers due to the "winner's curse" – wise buyers will often try to avoid being part of an auction process.
Does that mean the seller always wants an auction, highest price always being best? Maybe if you can sell-and-forget a physical item. But selling your unique-in-the-industry talents for the next N years isn't quite like that: it's a relationship where you'll need a full gelled team and other costly resources to do well, and some safety margin for miscalculations. A 'cursed' winner who overpays for you, and others, might wind up sinking your projects and career when the errors manifest.
Pixar employees have done very well, overall, including through stock options which became more valuable because their teams stuck together, and delivered critically-lauded and highly-profitable work at sustainable costs. Perhaps an alternate-history, with more talent raids and compensation bidding-wars, would have led to some superstar employees making even more money. But it might also have torpedoed key projects at key moments, and left the company and the bulk of the employees, far worse off. It's not a simple situation to model.
The easy (and legal!) way to do this is to get people under contract. Executive teams do this among themselves all the time, so it's not as though they're unfamiliar wit the principle or the practice. Sports teams do it too, as do a lot of creative fields where the particular people involved make all the difference.
The obvious downside (from the perspective of the suits) is that they end up paying more for talent than otherwise would. Every dollar going to the staff is a dollar that isn't available to the executive team. It's a zero sum game, and the guys on top were playing dirty to get what they'd never be able to get if they kept it clean.
I've personally tried to negotiate a contract in an at-will employment state with a company when I accepted a directorship there. They refused to budge on it. It was at-will or nothing, and their excuse was "We've only ever heard of that kind of thing for C-levels". I would've been giving up a lot of flexibility too, and most employees wouldn't be ready for that or willing to do it.
>Every dollar going to the staff is a dollar that isn't available to the executive team.
That's not how corporate structure works, especially corporate structure in a progressive startup like Pixar used to be. Yes, there are performance bonuses for executives, but there are also profit sharing bonuses and stock options for rank-and-file employees, which creates an interest in the company's welfare beyond the universal "I don't want to lose my job". It's silly to act like there's a direct inverse correlation between dollars spent on wages and dollars forwarded to executives' personal bank accounts.
At this point I'm convinced this thread is just an anti-capitalist, anti-business crusade by misguided justice warriors. Pretty disappointing for a platform that's supposed to be intended for entrepreneurs.
