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> You don't quite understand Joel's point. Regardless of whether you are legally right, a larger company could sue you for the sake of suing, and make your life
by Tharkun 10y ago
> You don't quite understand Joel's point. Regardless of whether you are legally right, a larger company could sue you for the sake of suing, and make your life very miserable. And if the fight continues and you run out of money, what then?
Don't work for companies that are dicks. If there's crap about them wanting to own you or your thoughts, don't sign it and get a different job elsewhere.
Remember when little kids would die in factories doing dangerous jobs? No? Me neither. Know why? Because at some point people had enough, went on strike, attitudes and laws changed. If you live in an area where your employer can make your life miserable for no apparent reason, or where your employer can own you outside of work, then you need to help put a stop to that madness.
- zenlikethat 10y ago> Don't work for companies that are dicks. If there's crap about them wanting to own you or your thoughts, don't sign it and get a different job elsewhere. That's Joel's whole point, almost every single company had these restrictions written into your contract. And it's not possible to know if they're "the nice ones" who won't sue you ahead of time.
- nightski 10y agoSimple. Don't work as an employee. This is the one industry where it really isn't that difficult. I took the leap 5 years ago and within 3 years quadrupled my income and have complete autonomy and freedom.
- hkon 10y agoI did this as well. Best thing I ever did. However I find that when Isuggest this, people have all the reasons in the world not to. More $€ for us then.
- dnt404-1 10y agoFor those who like this idea, can we have a communication channel to ask how you did it?
- thomasrognon 10y ago+1 I am very interested in this as well.
- Omnius 10y ago+1 me too. I would love to here how you put it all together.
- manish_gill 10y agoI was literally looking for such a Slack chat up until half an hour ago. Haven't managed to find one yet. Can we make one? :)
- mrpippy 10y agoAlso interested!
- ambicapter 10y agoMessage me if you find one :D
- mixmastamyk 10y agoBlog post might be more efficient.
- joe563323 10y ago+1 me too.
- borgel 10y agoInterested too
- spangry 10y agoI'm not a software dev or tech worker. But I hope you guys do this. I may have just drunk too much HN kool-aid, but software devs seem to be criminally under-valued and often exploited (see Crytek thread on front page, for example). Then there's guys like Bezos who, after underpaying and exploiting you, will replace you with a machine-learning algo the second it is technically feasible and a net positive to the company bottom line. I've also noticed some interesting features of the software development labour market: quite a lot of the work is creative in nature, you produce non-rivalrous products (i.e. my consumption of 'software x' does not block someone else's consumption), and the workforce is supposedly peppered with unusually talented individuals who produce 50-100x the value that the average worker does. There are two other industries that have similar features: traditional screen entertainment (TV & Movie), and professional sports leagues. In both of these industries, the content producing workers (baseball players, actors) are invariably a member of an industry guild or union, and operate more like independent contractors than employees... Food for thought.
- gaius 10y agoRemember when little kids would die in factories doing dangerous jobs? No? Me neither. A tangent, but http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/10017011/Primark-shocked-by-Bangladesh-building-collapse.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandcon... There's a Primark on every high street in the UK. Someone you've seen today is probably wearing an item of clothing made in those conditions.