Re: Doing the maths
That is not the whole math. Californicating average qualified tech employee cost to the company is > 200K per annum.
415M equates to cost of ~ 2k employees which could have been subject to such a no-poach agreement. Most participating companies had 10K+ employees potentially subject to this. Let us assume 80K and 2K respectively which is an underestimate. That equates to 2.5% over the duration of the salary pact. This is significantly less than actual workforce mobility in the Silly valley over the same period.
So if we do the whole math it looks like all of the corporate participants are in profit after paying the cost, the fine and the compensation.
So the lesson is - hurrah, let's do it again. And they will do it again - there is no doubt about it.