Three years after his death, Steve Jobs is hailed as a genius of both consumer design and good old-fashioned capitalism, but no one ever said he was nice - as can be clearly seen when he found out he'd just got a Google employee fired. His response? A single :) smiley.
Jobs's reaction comes from a cache of emails published by tech site Pando Daily, which are actually part of a landmark class action lawsuit currently in progress against the tech giants of Silicon Valley.
The prosecutors in this case are alleging that seven tech giants including Google, Apple and Intel, all engaged in secret agreements to not poach one another's employees, suppressing wages amongst their workforces and letting each company dominate their given sector of the market.
The emails showing Jobs's smiley begin with a Google recruiter speculatively contacting an Apple employee about working for the search giant. Jobs is notified and then emails Google chairman Eric Schmidt, noting "I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this."
Schmidt emails his HR department the next day, saying: "I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple and this is a direct inbound request. Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening? I will need to send a response back to Apple quickly so please let me know as soon as you can."
