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Why do you see nothing unethical about it? Imagine a software engineer invests half-a-year of full time work, iterating through product/idea. Paying market rat

Why do you see nothing unethical about it? Imagine a software engineer invests half-a-year of full time work, iterating through product/idea. Paying market rate of that person is $200k/year. A $100k invested into R&D. Now you are a VC. A software engineer shares the results of the work (idea/prototype) with you. It's primarily the refined idea that holds all that invested value. And then VC just claims - ideas are not protected - it is perfectly ethical to use ideas for free? Doesn't it destroy trust? Would such software engineer next time go to the same VC? How is it not equivalent to stealing $100k worth of someone's work?

kgwxd 8y ago
>It is perfectly ethical to use ideas for free? Unequivocally, yes.
- ukulele 8y ago
  By this logic, it would be ethical for a mega-corporation to take any technology they like from any individual or small business, without payment, under any circumstance. That's not the kind of ethics I personally prefer.
  - grandmczeb 8y ago
    Copying the code is wrong, but if all they copy is the idea, where’s the ethical problem? That’s just the nature of competition.
    - kgwxd 8y ago
      In the interest of keeping my stubborn image, I also meant copying code. If no tangible thing is taken that leaves the other without that thing, I'd say it is unethical to not share it.
    - yebyen 8y ago
      The guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, Robert Kearns, made tens of millions of dollars in court because Ford and Chrysler stole the idea from him. And he was able to do this because (TIL)... he had patented the idea more than half a dozen ways!
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    What does business have to do with ethics? That's all legalities. "Taking" is not the same as "copying" which I assume you meant. Would it be ethical for a large group of people to copy the technology of a small group of people without giving something in return? Sure, it'd be diplomatic to do so (although doing that might set a bad precedence), but I don't think there's a moral obligation.
    - ukulele 8y ago
      I'd disagree, with the comment that by ignoring existing human institutions like "business" and "legalities", ethics becomes more a thought experiment than a useful roadmap for interacting with the world. I personally prefer it to be the latter.
      - kgwxd 8y ago
        Law is a group of people agreeing to threaten other people's well being if they don't do things a certain way. A business is a group of people agreeing to share access to a pool of resources utilizing the threat of law. It's all just people is what I'm getting at. Putting on labels like "mega-corporation" and "small business" just muddies the waters, especially when the general consensus is mega-corp = bad, small business = good. I was attempting to remove the stigma of the chosen labels. But now I'm rethinking my mapping from mega-corp to large group and small business to small group. Both are more like a small groups of people, the owners, with a varying amount of resources to trade for goods and services (supplies, manufacturing, workers, bribes, etc). The smaller group doesn't necessarily have less resources. And now the idea of a group is muddying the waters, why not just consider them a person? So the question becomes, is it ethical for a person with more resources to copy the technology of a person with less resources without giving something in return? Hell, now the difference in available resources is getting in the way. Is it ethical for a person to copy another person without giving something in return? Keep in mind that copying works both ways. My answer is still yes.
        ukulele 8y ago
        I have a natural tendency toward the type of logic you're pursuing here, likely because I am very technically minded and enjoy mental gymnastics. I may be incorrect, but it seems the same might be true for you. For myself, I have found this type of reasoning to be an anti-pattern: simplifying the world to the point that I can wrap my head around it and (most importantly) arrive at a simple, clear-cut answer. I find that I can always make adjustments to my assumptions until I arrive at a world where the logic for my desired position holds firm. I've personally gotten more out of incorporating the messy nuances of the world into my mental gymnastics (e.g. mega-corporation != small business != group of people) even though that almost always comes at the expense of a clear-cut answer. Just a thought; YMMV!
  - xfer 8y ago
    You can't copy technology, there is IP laws for that and you need clean-room design to circumvent that.
  - samstave 8y ago
    This is the premise of the question every VC typically asks "Whats to stop [BigCo] from coming in and just throwing their vast resources behind solving the same problem?" The answer they seem to like to hear is "only Joe-Engineer could have invented this algo/tech/thingy, in this way, thus we have a patent on it!"
  - amenod 8y ago
    Not technology, idea. Good luck if you think the idea itself is worth much.
    - phkahler 8y ago
      This is the standard statement of people who make profit from others ideas. If ideas are not worth anything, go implement your own instead of using an idea someone else had. It's true that an idea in isolation is worthless. People need to bring it into existence, refine it, market it, in order to get any money out of it. That doesn't mean the idea has no value. To illustrate, one can ask "why this idea vs some other idea" and suddenly one is better than another.
  - chuckgreenman 8y ago
    Mega-corporations already do this, though, sometimes you get the courtesy of a buy out, other times, their next release includes a copy of your features.
cimmanom 8y ago
In this case, my interpretation of the OP was that the venture in question was defunct. Who’s being harmed and how?

kgwxd 8y ago

>It is perfectly ethical to use ideas for free? Unequivocally, yes.

ukulele 8y ago
By this logic, it would be ethical for a mega-corporation to take any technology they like from any individual or small business, without payment, under any circumstance. That's not the kind of ethics I personally prefer.
- grandmczeb 8y ago
  Copying the code is wrong, but if all they copy is the idea, where’s the ethical problem? That’s just the nature of competition.
  - kgwxd 8y ago
    In the interest of keeping my stubborn image, I also meant copying code. If no tangible thing is taken that leaves the other without that thing, I'd say it is unethical to not share it.
  - yebyen 8y ago
    The guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper, Robert Kearns, made tens of millions of dollars in court because Ford and Chrysler stole the idea from him. And he was able to do this because (TIL)... he had patented the idea more than half a dozen ways!
- kgwxd 8y ago
  What does business have to do with ethics? That's all legalities. "Taking" is not the same as "copying" which I assume you meant. Would it be ethical for a large group of people to copy the technology of a small group of people without giving something in return? Sure, it'd be diplomatic to do so (although doing that might set a bad precedence), but I don't think there's a moral obligation.
  - ukulele 8y ago
    I'd disagree, with the comment that by ignoring existing human institutions like "business" and "legalities", ethics becomes more a thought experiment than a useful roadmap for interacting with the world. I personally prefer it to be the latter.
    - kgwxd 8y ago
      Law is a group of people agreeing to threaten other people's well being if they don't do things a certain way. A business is a group of people agreeing to share access to a pool of resources utilizing the threat of law. It's all just people is what I'm getting at. Putting on labels like "mega-corporation" and "small business" just muddies the waters, especially when the general consensus is mega-corp = bad, small business = good. I was attempting to remove the stigma of the chosen labels. But now I'm rethinking my mapping from mega-corp to large group and small business to small group. Both are more like a small groups of people, the owners, with a varying amount of resources to trade for goods and services (supplies, manufacturing, workers, bribes, etc). The smaller group doesn't necessarily have less resources. And now the idea of a group is muddying the waters, why not just consider them a person? So the question becomes, is it ethical for a person with more resources to copy the technology of a person with less resources without giving something in return? Hell, now the difference in available resources is getting in the way. Is it ethical for a person to copy another person without giving something in return? Keep in mind that copying works both ways. My answer is still yes.
      - ukulele 8y ago
        I have a natural tendency toward the type of logic you're pursuing here, likely because I am very technically minded and enjoy mental gymnastics. I may be incorrect, but it seems the same might be true for you. For myself, I have found this type of reasoning to be an anti-pattern: simplifying the world to the point that I can wrap my head around it and (most importantly) arrive at a simple, clear-cut answer. I find that I can always make adjustments to my assumptions until I arrive at a world where the logic for my desired position holds firm. I've personally gotten more out of incorporating the messy nuances of the world into my mental gymnastics (e.g. mega-corporation != small business != group of people) even though that almost always comes at the expense of a clear-cut answer. Just a thought; YMMV!
- xfer 8y ago
  You can't copy technology, there is IP laws for that and you need clean-room design to circumvent that.
- samstave 8y ago
  This is the premise of the question every VC typically asks "Whats to stop [BigCo] from coming in and just throwing their vast resources behind solving the same problem?" The answer they seem to like to hear is "only Joe-Engineer could have invented this algo/tech/thingy, in this way, thus we have a patent on it!"
- amenod 8y ago
  Not technology, idea. Good luck if you think the idea itself is worth much.
  - phkahler 8y ago
    This is the standard statement of people who make profit from others ideas. If ideas are not worth anything, go implement your own instead of using an idea someone else had. It's true that an idea in isolation is worthless. People need to bring it into existence, refine it, market it, in order to get any money out of it. That doesn't mean the idea has no value. To illustrate, one can ask "why this idea vs some other idea" and suddenly one is better than another.
- chuckgreenman 8y ago
  Mega-corporations already do this, though, sometimes you get the courtesy of a buy out, other times, their next release includes a copy of your features.

cimmanom 8y ago

In this case, my interpretation of the OP was that the venture in question was defunct. Who’s being harmed and how?