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For real. I am an indie game dev who recently released his first big game on Steam. Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order

For real. I am an indie game dev who recently released his first big game on Steam. Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally-developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company. Needless to say, I decided against that job.

dabber 10y ago
Wow, I'd lie if I said I wasn't worried I'd someday have to take a job like that. Was this job you applied to in the gaming space? If so, is that type of ask common place in your experience? Also, a bit of an aside. What's the game you released called? I get you probably intended to avoid the plug but I'm curious. Edit: And of course, props to GitHub for this!
- soverance 10y ago
  Hopefully you'll never have to take a job that asks this of you. Yes, the job in question was in the gaming space, working on an unannounced virtual reality title. This has been the only time a company has ever asked me to divest interest in my own company and/or IP before being hired. Granted, I have only recently begun looking for work, but I cannot imagine this being a common scenario. Instead, I imagine these guys as sharks that do not have my best interests in mind; only their own. As for my game, it's called Ethereal Legends, and is now available on Steam. To bring things back onto the topic of this thread, the code for my game is also available on GitHub! https://github.com/Soverance/EtherealLegends https://github.com/Soverance/EtherealLegends
charlesdm 10y ago
And one wonders why they can't hire top talent. One the one hand, they want capable people who go out of their way to achieve results + love their craft. Guess what, that often happens by working on side projects (whether ultimately commercial or not, is irrelevant). As an employee the only concession I would personally be willing to make would be to not compete directly with the company you're employed at. And only if you're not employed at a company doing everything, i.e. a Google or a Microsoft.
KZeillmann 10y ago
That's an absolutely absurd request. I can understand if they said that you wouldn't be able to work on your game during business hours, or on your company machine, but to request that you dissolve your company and sell them your IP? That's insane
- pjc50 10y ago
  Information feudalism. The slim possibility that you might get into an IP dispute with them later used as an excuse to make sure employees have no independent revenue-earning capability.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- londons_explore 10y ago
  "It's worth $1B. Still want to buy it from me?"
  - AIMunchkin 10y ago
    "But for you, I like the cut of your jib, $100M."
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    I don't see a problem with this. If you put a price on that work, and they meet that price, seems like an equitable exchange.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      But if they paid you that much for your IP, would you still work for them?
      - bluejekyll 10y ago
        Well, at least for the payout period, assuming it wasn't all given in a one time payment. Otherwise, it of course depends on what they're doing. It might be really interesting work that you get the chance to work with a lot of other very brilliant people to build something amazing. If that's not true, then no, I'd probably go and start just writing fun open-source stuff all the time.
Humdeee 10y ago
Congrats on release. Assuming you were interested to sell, what would that number be? How did the conversation go after that point?
cheez 10y ago
Yep. I was hired at a major hedge fund. Disclosed my interest in various companies ahead of time. Got to the hedge fund. Was told that I had to dissolve the interest. Quit job. Everyone pissed. I had other reasons to quit which had nothing to do with the job itself (I loved it), but that was a major one. I get paid more, per hour, from my businesses than any job I've had so far.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  Out of interest, which types of companies did you own stakes in?
  - cheez 10y ago
    Software
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
VLM 10y ago
Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. Do you really want to buy into a feudalistic legacy organizational model knowing that the odds of rising up in the pyramid are approximately zero? And they're going to downsize with no loyalty if needed to bump the stock price later on. Like a decapitated chicken the company will strut around a bit randomly canceling or creating projects so you have no control over your future other than maybe running away to another feudal manor and some have non-competes to try and enforce that kind of slavery. So they're worth nothing to you as an employer unless you want to LARP that you're a feudal peasant in 1300 and you're worth nothing to them as they'll fire you or steal from you in a blink of an eye if they can make a nickel off it. Meanwhile a competitor smart enough to hire you as a consultant will crush them in the market purely for organizational superiority reasons. Companies that hire contractors are inherently more modern and superior and more likely to succeed. The future, being unevenly distributed, some folks still think employment is alive, but one effect of post-industrialism or service economy or infinite benefit prices is employment is good and dead. In a dying business model, the employer needs employees a lot more than employees need the employer.
- fs111 10y ago
  > Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. I am pretty happy with my employment. Paid vacation, paid sick days, reasonable hours and all that good stuff.
  - lsaferite 10y ago
    Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple clients. Not every person can do that and even among those that can, not every one has the motivation to do it.
    - throwanem 10y ago
elastic_church 10y ago
Sometimes I just go with it because of how unenforceable that contract will be for them and how Ill get paid in the meantime laughing silently to myself at the absurdity
- dspillett 10y ago
  Depending on how vicious the company is when "crossed" you might find they can make it expensive for you for a while by trying to enforce it and making you put resource into fighting back. Personally, if I don't agree with and and/or aren't willing to stand by it, I don't sign it. Of course for some less fortunate desperation means they have to compromise on such ideals.
  - elastic_church 10y ago
    right thats something to consider there's just so many ways around it and I'd LOVE to get some case law made just to get some unknowns clarified. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime, do they get to rewrite the Apache license because one contributor had signed a contract? when running this open source software that happens to generate a transferable token with a liquid secondary market with no proof of ownership, is that the company's? would love some broke startup to spend time on that case
    - Silhouette 10y ago
      there's just so many ways around it That depends very much on which jurisdiction you're in. You'd be crazy to assume, without taking proper legal advice, that retrospective assignment would not stand up as part of an explicit employment contract. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime If you did that without your employer's permission, then probably both you personally and anyone redistributing the OSS project would be infringing the employer's copyright. If that upset your employer, you could expect to be fired and possibly sued, and anyone involved in redistributing the OSS project could expect a C&D from your former employer's lawyers pending removal of any infringing work you contributed. Depending on the scale and sensitivity of whatever you contributed, a bad result could be that you are out of a job, bankrupt due to damages and legal costs, and known for being untrustworthy since any future employer who looks you up is going to find the lawsuit, while the OSS project is significantly inconvenienced and doesn't ultimately benefit from your contribution anyway.
Negative1 10y ago
You're not shameful enough to direct plug so I'll do it for you: http://soverance.com/ethereal/ http://soverance.com/ethereal/ Looks cool (fighting the "infected mushroom", ha).
- tomp 10y ago
  *shameless
- soverance 10y ago
  haha thanks for the plug!
hinkley 10y ago
You should write back to the developer contact on that interview and explain exactly why you're declining. They may assume you had other reasons for not moving forward. Bad actors have a habit of making their mistakes look like something else.
- arjie 10y ago
  It's their company. It's their problem. I wouldn't bother.
JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally-developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company. That's unusually awful for an employment agreement. Most employment agreements claim everything developed by the employee on company time and resources, and many claim everything developed while employed, but this is the first time I've ever heard of an employment agreement demanding all past work. Good call on just leaving; not worth even negotiating with a company that tries to pull a stunt like that.
dspillett 10y ago
If the company was into anything related to gaming, my assumption would be that they were looking to buy the IP at a knocked down rate by hiring you (or that the chance to get the IP cheap was one of the differentiators between you and the next best candidate).

dabber 10y ago

Wow, I'd lie if I said I wasn't worried I'd someday have to take a job like that. Was this job you applied to in the gaming space? If so, is that type of ask common place in your experience? Also, a bit of an aside. What's the game you released called? I get you probably intended to avoid the plug but I'm curious. Edit: And of course, props to GitHub for this!

soverance 10y ago
Hopefully you'll never have to take a job that asks this of you. Yes, the job in question was in the gaming space, working on an unannounced virtual reality title. This has been the only time a company has ever asked me to divest interest in my own company and/or IP before being hired. Granted, I have only recently begun looking for work, but I cannot imagine this being a common scenario. Instead, I imagine these guys as sharks that do not have my best interests in mind; only their own. As for my game, it's called Ethereal Legends, and is now available on Steam. To bring things back onto the topic of this thread, the code for my game is also available on GitHub! https://github.com/Soverance/EtherealLegends https://github.com/Soverance/EtherealLegends

charlesdm 10y ago

And one wonders why they can't hire top talent. One the one hand, they want capable people who go out of their way to achieve results + love their craft. Guess what, that often happens by working on side projects (whether ultimately commercial or not, is irrelevant). As an employee the only concession I would personally be willing to make would be to not compete directly with the company you're employed at. And only if you're not employed at a company doing everything, i.e. a Google or a Microsoft.

KZeillmann 10y ago

That's an absolutely absurd request. I can understand if they said that you wouldn't be able to work on your game during business hours, or on your company machine, but to request that you dissolve your company and sell them your IP? That's insane

pjc50 10y ago
Information feudalism. The slim possibility that you might get into an IP dispute with them later used as an excuse to make sure employees have no independent revenue-earning capability.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
londons_explore 10y ago
"It's worth $1B. Still want to buy it from me?"
- AIMunchkin 10y ago
  "But for you, I like the cut of your jib, $100M."
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  I don't see a problem with this. If you put a price on that work, and they meet that price, seems like an equitable exchange.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    But if they paid you that much for your IP, would you still work for them?
    - bluejekyll 10y ago
      Well, at least for the payout period, assuming it wasn't all given in a one time payment. Otherwise, it of course depends on what they're doing. It might be really interesting work that you get the chance to work with a lot of other very brilliant people to build something amazing. If that's not true, then no, I'd probably go and start just writing fun open-source stuff all the time.

Humdeee 10y ago

Congrats on release. Assuming you were interested to sell, what would that number be? How did the conversation go after that point?

cheez 10y ago

Yep. I was hired at a major hedge fund. Disclosed my interest in various companies ahead of time. Got to the hedge fund. Was told that I had to dissolve the interest. Quit job. Everyone pissed. I had other reasons to quit which had nothing to do with the job itself (I loved it), but that was a major one. I get paid more, per hour, from my businesses than any job I've had so far.

charlesdm 10y ago
Out of interest, which types of companies did you own stakes in?
- cheez 10y ago
  Software

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

VLM 10y ago

Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. Do you really want to buy into a feudalistic legacy organizational model knowing that the odds of rising up in the pyramid are approximately zero? And they're going to downsize with no loyalty if needed to bump the stock price later on. Like a decapitated chicken the company will strut around a bit randomly canceling or creating projects so you have no control over your future other than maybe running away to another feudal manor and some have non-competes to try and enforce that kind of slavery. So they're worth nothing to you as an employer unless you want to LARP that you're a feudal peasant in 1300 and you're worth nothing to them as they'll fire you or steal from you in a blink of an eye if they can make a nickel off it. Meanwhile a competitor smart enough to hire you as a consultant will crush them in the market purely for organizational superiority reasons. Companies that hire contractors are inherently more modern and superior and more likely to succeed. The future, being unevenly distributed, some folks still think employment is alive, but one effect of post-industrialism or service economy or infinite benefit prices is employment is good and dead. In a dying business model, the employer needs employees a lot more than employees need the employer.

fs111 10y ago
> Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. I am pretty happy with my employment. Paid vacation, paid sick days, reasonable hours and all that good stuff.
- lsaferite 10y ago
  Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple clients. Not every person can do that and even among those that can, not every one has the motivation to do it.
  - throwanem 10y ago

elastic_church 10y ago

Sometimes I just go with it because of how unenforceable that contract will be for them and how Ill get paid in the meantime laughing silently to myself at the absurdity

dspillett 10y ago
Depending on how vicious the company is when "crossed" you might find they can make it expensive for you for a while by trying to enforce it and making you put resource into fighting back. Personally, if I don't agree with and and/or aren't willing to stand by it, I don't sign it. Of course for some less fortunate desperation means they have to compromise on such ideals.
- elastic_church 10y ago
  right thats something to consider there's just so many ways around it and I'd LOVE to get some case law made just to get some unknowns clarified. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime, do they get to rewrite the Apache license because one contributor had signed a contract? when running this open source software that happens to generate a transferable token with a liquid secondary market with no proof of ownership, is that the company's? would love some broke startup to spend time on that case
  - Silhouette 10y ago
    there's just so many ways around it That depends very much on which jurisdiction you're in. You'd be crazy to assume, without taking proper legal advice, that retrospective assignment would not stand up as part of an explicit employment contract. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime If you did that without your employer's permission, then probably both you personally and anyone redistributing the OSS project would be infringing the employer's copyright. If that upset your employer, you could expect to be fired and possibly sued, and anyone involved in redistributing the OSS project could expect a C&D from your former employer's lawyers pending removal of any infringing work you contributed. Depending on the scale and sensitivity of whatever you contributed, a bad result could be that you are out of a job, bankrupt due to damages and legal costs, and known for being untrustworthy since any future employer who looks you up is going to find the lawsuit, while the OSS project is significantly inconvenienced and doesn't ultimately benefit from your contribution anyway.

Negative1 10y ago

You're not shameful enough to direct plug so I'll do it for you: http://soverance.com/ethereal/ http://soverance.com/ethereal/ Looks cool (fighting the "infected mushroom", ha).

tomp 10y ago
*shameless
soverance 10y ago
haha thanks for the plug!

hinkley 10y ago

You should write back to the developer contact on that interview and explain exactly why you're declining. They may assume you had other reasons for not moving forward. Bad actors have a habit of making their mistakes look like something else.

arjie 10y ago
It's their company. It's their problem. I wouldn't bother.

JoshTriplett 10y ago

> Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally-developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company. That's unusually awful for an employment agreement. Most employment agreements claim everything developed by the employee on company time and resources, and many claim everything developed while employed, but this is the first time I've ever heard of an employment agreement demanding all past work. Good call on just leaving; not worth even negotiating with a company that tries to pull a stunt like that.

dspillett 10y ago

If the company was into anything related to gaming, my assumption would be that they were looking to buy the IP at a knocked down rate by hiring you (or that the chance to get the IP cheap was one of the differentiators between you and the next best candidate).