4 ms·

>Remember that "theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built. Fairchild was "theft of trade secrets" from Shockley; Intel was "theft of trade secrets

by tw04 7y ago

>Remember that "theft of trade secrets" is how Silicon Valley was built. Fairchild was "theft of trade secrets" from Shockley; Intel was "theft of trade secrets" from Fairchild. When Camenzind left Signetics and designed the 555 (under contract to Signetics), he was "using trade secrets" of Signetics Do you have proof of this? Claiming all those companies were founded by people who stole confidential documentation from their previous employers is a pretty bold claim to make without evidence.

kragen 7y ago
They were the key engineers of those companies, which were (in the first two cases) the only ones in the industry at the time; their heads contained nothing but (what today we would call) "trade secrets".
- wp381640 7y ago
  Levandowski ripped entire archives of files and plans
- cortesoft 7y ago
  If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. He took actual code written by other people.
  - kragen 7y ago
    > If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. Kai-Fu Lee wasn't. Evan Brown wasn't (edited to clarify: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/12/alcatel_owns_us_employees_thoughts/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/12/alcatel_owns_us_emp...). Don't be so quick to fall prey to the Just World Fallacy, assuming that bad precedents will never be applied against good people. Remember, too, that the founders of Fairchild and of Intel had lots of knowledge in their heads that had been discovered by their left-behind coworkers at Shockley and Fairchild. They probably had documents in their homes — by accident if nothing else, if the history of recovered source code printouts from that epoch is anything to go by — but because there was no prosecution to find out about it, we'll probably never know.
    - vonmoltke 7y ago
      > Kai-Fu Lee wasn't. Microsoft sued Google in civil court over a non-compete agreement, not theft. The settlement allowed Lee to keep his job, so other than five months of anxiety I'm not sure how he wasn't "fine". Levandowski is being charged with 33 counts in a criminal indictment. These cases are not even in the same ballpark. > Evan Brown wasn't. I don't know who that is, and there are apparently too many notable people named "Evan Brown" for me to figure it out without more context.
      - cortesoft 7y ago
        Yeah, all I found was the football player... no idea who they are talking about.
      - kirubakaran 7y ago
        I searched for: evan brown lawsuit I got this: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-08-05-0208050013-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-08-05-020805... Alcatel's PoV: https://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown https://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown
    - pmart123 7y ago
      That’s still a huge difference. Someone having printed flow control diagrams, knowledge of what did and didn’t work, and the list of packages and tools used in a spreadsheet is very different ripping the entire source code.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Now you're mixing up contractual obligations (which engineers freely entered into) with trade secrets.
- convolvatron 7y ago
  certainly. but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out. trying to clearly define what exactly are ideas owned by the employer has to fail on principle. especially when you consider that even a new grad is being hired with the expectation that they are bringing ideas and techniques to bear that they developed someplace else.
  - kragen 7y ago
    > but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out. Or just leaving the industry, or lifetime employment with a single company — hardly unthinkable; in fact, it was the rule in the US within living memory, and I've worked at companies where the majority of engineers were lifers. This would be a very favorable outcome for investors in your company: they get the fruits of your million-dollar ideas for the rest of your life, and they only have to pay you a somewhat-below-market salary, since you have no negotiating power to demand a higher one. It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers, or for hacking as a vocation or programming as a profession.
    - amyjess 7y ago
      > It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers It's a favorable outcome for people who want stability. There is huge value in knowing that you're not going to get fired unless you do something actively malicious. Some people aren't interested in climbing, have poor interviewing skills, and don't want to deal with the cognitive overhead of learning a different company's tech stack every two years. Plus, most companies tie vacation time to seniority, so being able to stay at a company for 10+ years means you'll get to have four weeks of vacation every year, while people who switch jobs every two years will always be stuck at two.
      - kragen 7y ago
        I wasn't talking about a situation where the company can't fire you. I was talking about a situation where you can't quit the company. If the company has a credible legal case against any prior employee who works for a competitor, then firing you ends your career. That makes your job less secure, not more.

by tw04 7y ago

kragen 7y ago

They were the key engineers of those companies, which were (in the first two cases) the only ones in the industry at the time; their heads contained nothing but (what today we would call) "trade secrets".

wp381640 7y ago
Levandowski ripped entire archives of files and plans
cortesoft 7y ago
If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. He took actual code written by other people.
- kragen 7y ago
  > If Levandowski had only taken the secrets that were in his head, he would have been fine. Kai-Fu Lee wasn't. Evan Brown wasn't (edited to clarify: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/12/alcatel_owns_us_employees_thoughts/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/08/12/alcatel_owns_us_emp...). Don't be so quick to fall prey to the Just World Fallacy, assuming that bad precedents will never be applied against good people. Remember, too, that the founders of Fairchild and of Intel had lots of knowledge in their heads that had been discovered by their left-behind coworkers at Shockley and Fairchild. They probably had documents in their homes — by accident if nothing else, if the history of recovered source code printouts from that epoch is anything to go by — but because there was no prosecution to find out about it, we'll probably never know.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    > Kai-Fu Lee wasn't. Microsoft sued Google in civil court over a non-compete agreement, not theft. The settlement allowed Lee to keep his job, so other than five months of anxiety I'm not sure how he wasn't "fine". Levandowski is being charged with 33 counts in a criminal indictment. These cases are not even in the same ballpark. > Evan Brown wasn't. I don't know who that is, and there are apparently too many notable people named "Evan Brown" for me to figure it out without more context.
    - cortesoft 7y ago
      Yeah, all I found was the football player... no idea who they are talking about.
    - kirubakaran 7y ago
      I searched for: evan brown lawsuit I got this: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-08-05-0208050013-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-08-05-020805... Alcatel's PoV: https://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown https://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown
  - pmart123 7y ago
    That’s still a huge difference. Someone having printed flow control diagrams, knowledge of what did and didn’t work, and the list of packages and tools used in a spreadsheet is very different ripping the entire source code.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Now you're mixing up contractual obligations (which engineers freely entered into) with trade secrets.
convolvatron 7y ago
certainly. but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out. trying to clearly define what exactly are ideas owned by the employer has to fail on principle. especially when you consider that even a new grad is being hired with the expectation that they are bringing ideas and techniques to bear that they developed someplace else.
- kragen 7y ago
  > but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out. Or just leaving the industry, or lifetime employment with a single company — hardly unthinkable; in fact, it was the rule in the US within living memory, and I've worked at companies where the majority of engineers were lifers. This would be a very favorable outcome for investors in your company: they get the fruits of your million-dollar ideas for the rest of your life, and they only have to pay you a somewhat-below-market salary, since you have no negotiating power to demand a higher one. It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers, or for hacking as a vocation or programming as a profession.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    > It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers It's a favorable outcome for people who want stability. There is huge value in knowing that you're not going to get fired unless you do something actively malicious. Some people aren't interested in climbing, have poor interviewing skills, and don't want to deal with the cognitive overhead of learning a different company's tech stack every two years. Plus, most companies tie vacation time to seniority, so being able to stay at a company for 10+ years means you'll get to have four weeks of vacation every year, while people who switch jobs every two years will always be stuck at two.
    - kragen 7y ago
      I wasn't talking about a situation where the company can't fire you. I was talking about a situation where you can't quit the company. If the company has a credible legal case against any prior employee who works for a competitor, then firing you ends your career. That makes your job less secure, not more.