> Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side? If the contract they signed with Herman Miller expressly forbad

> Can you imagine if a herman miller furniture designer was sued for making chairs on the side? If the contract they signed with Herman Miller expressly forbade them from doing this, yes, I can totally imagine that. The problem isn't the side project, per se -- it's starting a side project that is in direct or indirect competition with your employer. If you work in the Alexa group at Amazon, for instance, they're probably not going to care about a "side project" of selling sparkly pony dolls on Etsy, but if your "side project" is developing a new voice assistant, you're going to have a problem.