So I thought it was interesting and humorous when we discovered that Facebook, which will more than double the number of employees to 700 next year, was grabbing Google employees at an alarming rate – at least ten high profile hires so far, and 2–4 more each month.

But what isn’t so funny is that they are poaching from other startups and companies much closer to my heart. Namely, us. Today I found out that they’ve hired our product manager for Crunchbase, Ben Meyer. Ben was one of our star interns over the summer, and we kept him on in a full time role when the internship ended. We don’t have many people here at TechCrunch, and everyone is key. Losing Ben is very, very hard.

But apparently the gravitational pull of Facebook and their stock options was enough to lure him away from TechCrunch. Congratulations to Ben, who will be missed but will do well in his new job (and, I hope, give us internal access to Facebook’s admin system ).

But I am not happy at all with Facebook about this. Stay the hell away from our employees, Facebook, and fill your employment quotas elsewhere. Anyone else, and I declare war.

On a completely unrelated note, if anyone has a lead on a highly negative Facebook story, send it our way. Unfounded rumors and pure speculation are encouraged. Jerks. (Update: this is exactly the kind of stuff I’m looking for)

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