by Kyle Stone and Kevin Connor

Our research project on the Bay Area’s ten largest corporations was fully funded on Spot.us in early October and has come to a close, but with it we’ve built a lasting resource that we hope will continue to pay dividends for watchdog efforts in California.

We focused on identifying and profiling the most powerful and influential executives, managers, board members, employees, associates, and lobbyists affiliated with each company. In the course of the project we compiled data on over 400 people, added close to 5000 relationships connecting them, published ten in-depth profiles and stories (one of which was picked up by Alternet and Felix Salmon of Reuters), and created several network visualizations.

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I spent last week investigating Apple for our project Who’s Behind the Bay Area’s Top Ten Companies?, which we’ve posted as a pitch on Spot.us.

Good thing I researched Apple — number eight on our list of the Bay Area’s top 10 companies — because I’ve spent this week probing Google and there are a myriad of connections between the two. It’s well documented how quickly and easily Silicon Valley employees move between competing companies, but there are a high number of people moving between Google and Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Facebook. There are also a large amount of Google employees who have started out as consultants at McKinsey & Company. Check out Google’s interlocks page for more specifics, but here’s some of what I uncovered.

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Apple is next in our series on our latest project, Who’s Behind the Bay Area’s Most Powerful Companies?, which Kyle and Matthew have kicked off with posts on Chevron, McKesson, and Hewlett Packard.  The project is being funded by our pitch on Spot.us.

It’s no secret that Silicon Valley has a cutthroat employment cycle. Companies borrow employees from one another left and right and, generally, if one employee makes the bold move to switch over to a competing company, he usually takes others with him.

Apple is no exception. As one of the most established tech companies in Silicon Valley – and number eight on our list of the 10 most powerful Bay Area Companies – it’s only natural that a lot of employee turnover take place. Apple employees past, present, and future have ties to IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Yahoo and Google – all the biggest Silicon Valley players, as well as smaller start-ups. Follow along with these relationships at Apple’s interlocks page.

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Being one of the largest and most-established producers of consumer technology in the world, it is no surprise that Hewlett-Packard maintains a dominating presence within northern California’s business, commerce, and and information networks.

(Want to learn more about the ties behind the Bay Area’s biggest companies? Donate to our investigation on Spot.Us.)

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