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I don’t think many of these comments are realistic. I’m truth, these clauses are likely defensive, particularly for tech companies. There is an almost 100% chan

I don’t think many of these comments are realistic. I’m truth, these clauses are likely defensive, particularly for tech companies. There is an almost 100% chance that if you started a company and left your job, your company will not register your coming or going in the slightest. If you’re some famous person that ends up starting some billion dollar company, and it was in an area highly relevant to your job, you might have a problem. Or if you try to sue them to stop doing something you created while employed for them. But if you’re just a regular person that starts some business that’s moderately successful (already an unlikely scenario), everything is going to be fine. It will likely take you YEARS and YEARS of toiling in obscurity before you come even close to profitability, and that’s if you’re lucky. You think some big tech company is even going to remember you? Even if you build a multimillion dollar business, that’s a drop in the bucket for them, not to mention legal fees, difficulty of enforcing the dubious contract, and the bad PR of squashing a former employee’s business.

icedchai 7y ago
Yes. This, 100%. I would like to just add this one thing which may be obvious: don't draw attention to yourself, don't tell any coworkers about whatever you're doing on the side.
- ChuckMcM 7y ago
  And I will add to this excellent pair of comments, 90% of "starting a company and running it" has exactly zero to do with what ever the "idea" is that your building. It is all about how to hire people efficiently, how to get the best work out of them, how to make your company visible, how to communicate your product's value, how to find potential customers and get them to look at what you have, and then how to get them to hand over real money for what you're offering. I would strongly recommend against remote work if you're plan is to learn about starting and running a company because so much of what is involved must be observed and isn't communicated. How does the CEO talk in group settings? How do they talk to investors? How do employees talk to each other, what do they think of their manager and how is that expressed in their behavior. This is a game of observation which you cannot do on the other end of a web camera.
treespace8 7y ago
I just wanted to add one more scenario. You make the next minecraft and are making millions after a few months. You now have money to fight back with your own legal team.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
not_a_moth 7y ago
Exception: You work at a decently funded startup, you play a key role, and you leave to start something in the same domain. They know who you are, and they're probably insecure about their own success.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  That's why you never sign a non-compete. https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ I had a non-compete in a startup contract and I outright refused to sign it. I'm glad I did. They wanted complete control of all the software I wrote too (which up until that point had been GPLv3; all volunteer work). After the startup failed, my efforts in that contract negotiation paid off as I made sure I was allowed to re-release the software as GPLv3. It's currently used by students at the University of Dayton: https://bigsense.io https://bigsense.io
  - detaro 7y ago
    Expired cert and HTTP 503?
    - djsumdog 7y ago
      Hmm .. seems like my certbot container stopped renewing and my confluence container ran out of memory. I should really add some monitoring. :)
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
It is disappointing but not surprising that this is the top comment. If you want to start a company on the side, choose a field unrelated to your current company. If there's even a small sense that you are exfiltrating IP, any company worth their salt will come after you hard as a punitive measure. And yes, even Oracle and Google would care about small-scale IP theft, even if it isn't making much money.

icedchai 7y ago

Yes. This, 100%. I would like to just add this one thing which may be obvious: don't draw attention to yourself, don't tell any coworkers about whatever you're doing on the side.

ChuckMcM 7y ago
And I will add to this excellent pair of comments, 90% of "starting a company and running it" has exactly zero to do with what ever the "idea" is that your building. It is all about how to hire people efficiently, how to get the best work out of them, how to make your company visible, how to communicate your product's value, how to find potential customers and get them to look at what you have, and then how to get them to hand over real money for what you're offering. I would strongly recommend against remote work if you're plan is to learn about starting and running a company because so much of what is involved must be observed and isn't communicated. How does the CEO talk in group settings? How do they talk to investors? How do employees talk to each other, what do they think of their manager and how is that expressed in their behavior. This is a game of observation which you cannot do on the other end of a web camera.

treespace8 7y ago

I just wanted to add one more scenario. You make the next minecraft and are making millions after a few months. You now have money to fight back with your own legal team.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

not_a_moth 7y ago

Exception: You work at a decently funded startup, you play a key role, and you leave to start something in the same domain. They know who you are, and they're probably insecure about their own success.

djsumdog 7y ago
That's why you never sign a non-compete. https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/why-i-dont-sign-non-competes/ I had a non-compete in a startup contract and I outright refused to sign it. I'm glad I did. They wanted complete control of all the software I wrote too (which up until that point had been GPLv3; all volunteer work). After the startup failed, my efforts in that contract negotiation paid off as I made sure I was allowed to re-release the software as GPLv3. It's currently used by students at the University of Dayton: https://bigsense.io https://bigsense.io
- detaro 7y ago
  Expired cert and HTTP 503?
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    Hmm .. seems like my certbot container stopped renewing and my confluence container ran out of memory. I should really add some monitoring. :)

TAForObvReasons 7y ago

It is disappointing but not surprising that this is the top comment. If you want to start a company on the side, choose a field unrelated to your current company. If there's even a small sense that you are exfiltrating IP, any company worth their salt will come after you hard as a punitive measure. And yes, even Oracle and Google would care about small-scale IP theft, even if it isn't making much money.