Poaching workers is a big part of the tech economy. When Amazon opened in Seattle, it snapped up a lot of workers from Microsoft.

Sometimes, companies get bent out of shape about it. This week, the Puget Sound Business journal reported that a recruiter at Paul Allen's artificial intelligence institute threatened to sue someone at Facebook - over employee-snatching.

But other times, it’s just how things get done. Many workers in Seattle slide between tech jobs easily, taking advantage of perceived holes in non-compete agreements.

That kind of job mobility is one of the reasons why dozens of companies, from Best Buy to HBO, have opened up satellite offices in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle. They attract employees by offering perks like the tech jobs, such as a game room with an arcade-style basketball game.

“That’s not my high score,” said Sunjay Pandey apologetically, after firing off a few at my request in the Seattle offices of Capital One bank.

To be a bank today, you also need to be a tech company. Last year, Capital One opened an innovation lab just steps from Amazon's headquarters.

Pandey, a former Amazon product manager, runs it. “Yeah, if you looked at my LinkedIn profile, you’ll see that I worked at Amazon for multiple years at Alexa and AWS,” he said. (AWS is Amazon's cloud service).

But he said Capital One didn’t choose the South Lake Union neighborhood to poach employees from Amazon. “There’s no poaching going on for sure,” he said.

But still, he’s certainly not the only employee who lists Amazon as a former employer. Whether it’s intentional or not, Pandey acknowledges his office benefits from Amazon’s presence nearby.

“When you think about this area, and the kind of talent in this area, the top talent in the world — it’s here," Pandey said. "If you want the most highly trained and skilled people, you go where they are."

Capital One faces a different challenge than Amazon did when it scaled up here. Amazon was home-grown. Capital One is based in Virginia, and must convince potential employees that it’s committed to Seattle.

The company's doing what it can to fit in. The fourth floor conference rooms are named after Northwest bands.

“That’s been a real inspiration for us," Pandey said, pointing out the room names as we pass: Death Cab for Cutie, Blue Scholars, Macklemore, Heart.