4 ms·

I think this happens a lot. Did you sign a non compete? Some companies make you sign that for around 1 year.

by cfarm 7y ago

PaulHoule 7y ago
My take on non-competes. You might be lucky and they didn't make you sign one. If not, then you have to look at any possible commercial dispute like so. There are really four possibilities, based on the binary outcomes of A. Company A hits it big, and B. Company B hits it big even though it is a touch more complex than that. A lawsuit is expensive and isn't worth pursuing unless there is money to fund it and an expectation of a monetary outcome. If A and B both fail there is no risk. If B succeeds then at least you succeeded at B. Getting involved in some situation like Zuckerberg vs. the Zwinkelvoss Clone would be great. Possibly you share some with A. A could shut you down and might do so if A was bigger than B, but if B got bigger than A, they have no reason to kill the golden goose. If you fail on your own then you would have failed anyway. The legal risk is real but the impact should be discounted by concerns like the above. I cannot fault the engineer who walks out of a company with an understanding of how NOT to build a system. Don't walk out of there with any artifacts (other than other people's open source software) that could possibly help you build a system that is competitive because that gets you into trade secret law, copyright law and means you can be accused of crimes that are easy to prosecute someone one. If you have contact with their customers, that opens another range for a perception of personal betrayal. This could happen to an engineer but could also be done by a salesperson, customer support person, etc. People who are afraid of a commercial dispute of this sort (either imminently or over the next decade) should also file a provisional patent application (PPA) with the USPTO which has the latest knowledge you have that the other parties does not have. It is two weeks of work and a less than $200 filing charge and it starts the clock for patent protection, you do not need a lawyer. I've put marketing papers, etc. samples of source code, architecture documents, that are oriented around technology necessary for solving the problems you claim to solve in the marketing papers. If you have a dispute with someone, the PPA is an awesomely intimidating legal document -- no matter if you are the employee, employer, vendor, customer, etc.

I think this happens a lot. Did you sign a non compete? Some companies make you sign that for around 1 year.

by cfarm 7y ago

I think this happens a lot. Did you sign a non compete? Some companies make you sign that for around 1 year.

My take on non-competes. You might be lucky and they didn't make you sign one. If not, then you have to look at any possible commercial dispute like so. There are really four possibilities, based on the binary outcomes of A. Company A hits it big, and B. Company B hits it big even though it is a touch more complex than that. A lawsuit is expensive and isn't worth pursuing unless there is money to fund it and an expectation of a monetary outcome. If A and B both fail there is no risk. If B succeeds then at least you succeeded at B. Getting involved in some situation like Zuckerberg vs. the Zwinkelvoss Clone would be great. Possibly you share some with A. A could shut you down and might do so if A was bigger than B, but if B got bigger than A, they have no reason to kill the golden goose. If you fail on your own then you would have failed anyway. The legal risk is real but the impact should be discounted by concerns like the above. I cannot fault the engineer who walks out of a company with an understanding of how NOT to build a system. Don't walk out of there with any artifacts (other than other people's open source software) that could possibly help you build a system that is competitive because that gets you into trade secret law, copyright law and means you can be accused of crimes that are easy to prosecute someone one. If you have contact with their customers, that opens another range for a perception of personal betrayal. This could happen to an engineer but could also be done by a salesperson, customer support person, etc. People who are afraid of a commercial dispute of this sort (either imminently or over the next decade) should also file a provisional patent application (PPA) with the USPTO which has the latest knowledge you have that the other parties does not have. It is two weeks of work and a less than $200 filing charge and it starts the clock for patent protection, you do not need a lawyer. I've put marketing papers, etc. samples of source code, architecture documents, that are oriented around technology necessary for solving the problems you claim to solve in the marketing papers. If you have a dispute with someone, the PPA is an awesomely intimidating legal document -- no matter if you are the employee, employer, vendor, customer, etc.