5 ms·

The irony here is amazing. Woz built the Apple I while being employed by HP and now Apple making sure that doesn't happen again.

kensai 7y ago
"You are working it wrong!" :p
ghostcluster 7y ago
He also tried desperately to get HP to make it an official HP product. HP wasn't interested. https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/01/woz-i-begged-h-p-to-make-the-apple-1.html https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/01/w...
- cryptica 7y ago
  Still, it was generous of HP not to sue him afterwards. It sounds like he was using company resources to build it, they would have had a strong case. Even if they were not interested in commercializing at the time. I think in today's world, he would definitely be sued.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    Companies can can do claim that ideas from employees are a company resource, even when worker is paid hourly and off the clock and the idea was on the employees own time.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    Today, it would be illegal for HP to sue him for it after having declined to take up the product when the employee first offered it to the company, because CA labor law explicitly addresses this situation. This is in fact one of the ways that an employee can retain rights to an IP or product that is otherwise within the scope of the company's active businesses.
hellofunk 7y ago
I don't think you know the whole story. He gave HP the option to own all his work on the Apple I, and he was aware the entire time of the conflict of interest with his employer, and vocal about it.
- radicsge 7y ago
  being aware and vocal would change anything? Not in legal world.
  - codyb 7y ago
    The rule of law has a lot of ambiguities and intent and context certainly matter. If someone repeatedly says “you can have this” and you say “no” and then say “no wait I want it now that it is valuable” you probably don’t have an open and shut case regardless of what a contract says. I’m not super familiar with Woz’s story so if that’s not what happened, my point was more about the ambiguities of the law and flexibility of its application.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - bloemy 7y ago
    offering them the actual hardware and them refusing? Changes something in legal world.
  - hellofunk 7y ago
    He was both aware and vocal about it and tried to do something about it, but HP was not interested, which gave him freedom to pursue it independently with Jobs.
alasdair_ 7y ago
And Steve Jobs founded NeXT while on the clock at Apple. He even took a bunch of Apple engineers with him!
whalesalad 7y ago
Not really a fair comparison. While Woz was at HP, he wasn't the executive/leader of their personal computing division. I don't see how anyone can fault Apple here when the person doing this was leading their entire chip division. Scenario: I own car washes and hire someone to run and manage one of my locations. I pay them well and put them at the helm of the entire location. This person is able to completely learn the ins and outs of my business and in the meantime is slowly working on poaching other members of my staff and getting things lined up to open a competitive car wash. Who's side are you on?
- Supermancho 7y ago
  Not sure why the position is relevant, nor do I think Jobs's precedent was relevant. "a duty of loyalty to the company" - wholly made up. The company has no loyalty to you. "breached an intellectual property agreement" - this is the meat of the case. The rest is theater, including the subject. You have skill and talent and you are paid to do a series of tasks. You can capitalize those talents in many ways to make money, working for a company is an option. If you don't treat your employees well enough, they might leave and might even compete with you. We have laws to enforce this relationship at almost every possible turn. It's REALLY hard to get away with sabotage or inside information without quitting. Having your own LLC is great for a number of personal finance reasons.
  - whalesalad 7y ago
    This has nothing to do with loyalty. I agree that there is nothing wrong with this person going off to do their own thing. But getting that started on company time, including poaching other Apple employees, is totally out of line.
    - strbean 7y ago
      > But getting that started on company time, including poaching other Apple employees, is totally out of line. This is easily resolved. He was simply on break every second he spent planning and recruiting for his startup.
    - 7y ago

kensai 7y ago

"You are working it wrong!" :p

ghostcluster 7y ago

He also tried desperately to get HP to make it an official HP product. HP wasn't interested. https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/01/woz-i-begged-h-p-to-make-the-apple-1.html https://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/01/w...

cryptica 7y ago
Still, it was generous of HP not to sue him afterwards. It sounds like he was using company resources to build it, they would have had a strong case. Even if they were not interested in commercializing at the time. I think in today's world, he would definitely be sued.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  Companies can can do claim that ideas from employees are a company resource, even when worker is paid hourly and off the clock and the idea was on the employees own time.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- gamblor956 7y ago
  Today, it would be illegal for HP to sue him for it after having declined to take up the product when the employee first offered it to the company, because CA labor law explicitly addresses this situation. This is in fact one of the ways that an employee can retain rights to an IP or product that is otherwise within the scope of the company's active businesses.

hellofunk 7y ago

I don't think you know the whole story. He gave HP the option to own all his work on the Apple I, and he was aware the entire time of the conflict of interest with his employer, and vocal about it.

radicsge 7y ago
being aware and vocal would change anything? Not in legal world.
- codyb 7y ago
  The rule of law has a lot of ambiguities and intent and context certainly matter. If someone repeatedly says “you can have this” and you say “no” and then say “no wait I want it now that it is valuable” you probably don’t have an open and shut case regardless of what a contract says. I’m not super familiar with Woz’s story so if that’s not what happened, my point was more about the ambiguities of the law and flexibility of its application.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- bloemy 7y ago
  offering them the actual hardware and them refusing? Changes something in legal world.
- hellofunk 7y ago
  He was both aware and vocal about it and tried to do something about it, but HP was not interested, which gave him freedom to pursue it independently with Jobs.

alasdair_ 7y ago

And Steve Jobs founded NeXT while on the clock at Apple. He even took a bunch of Apple engineers with him!

whalesalad 7y ago

Not really a fair comparison. While Woz was at HP, he wasn't the executive/leader of their personal computing division. I don't see how anyone can fault Apple here when the person doing this was leading their entire chip division. Scenario: I own car washes and hire someone to run and manage one of my locations. I pay them well and put them at the helm of the entire location. This person is able to completely learn the ins and outs of my business and in the meantime is slowly working on poaching other members of my staff and getting things lined up to open a competitive car wash. Who's side are you on?

Supermancho 7y ago
Not sure why the position is relevant, nor do I think Jobs's precedent was relevant. "a duty of loyalty to the company" - wholly made up. The company has no loyalty to you. "breached an intellectual property agreement" - this is the meat of the case. The rest is theater, including the subject. You have skill and talent and you are paid to do a series of tasks. You can capitalize those talents in many ways to make money, working for a company is an option. If you don't treat your employees well enough, they might leave and might even compete with you. We have laws to enforce this relationship at almost every possible turn. It's REALLY hard to get away with sabotage or inside information without quitting. Having your own LLC is great for a number of personal finance reasons.
- whalesalad 7y ago
  This has nothing to do with loyalty. I agree that there is nothing wrong with this person going off to do their own thing. But getting that started on company time, including poaching other Apple employees, is totally out of line.
  - strbean 7y ago
    > But getting that started on company time, including poaching other Apple employees, is totally out of line. This is easily resolved. He was simply on break every second he spent planning and recruiting for his startup.
  - 7y ago