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What if confidentiality agreements had a maximum duration? The author worked at Apple a decade ago. Perhaps their NDA agreements should expire about now. Yes,

by dannyw 6y ago

What if confidentiality agreements had a maximum duration? The author worked at Apple a decade ago. Perhaps their NDA agreements should expire about now. Yes, it can be abused, but it’s kinda like copyright. It’s just like parents having a limited term: it (in theory) catches everyone up to best of X years ago.

rl3 6y ago
I think visions can play out far beyond ten years, and their disclosure could potentially further cement existing power structures, such as Apple. Of course, relying upon NDAs in lieu of real trust is trash anyways. Ideally, an [extremely well treated and compensated] team could maintain strict confidence based on ideology alone. Your mission just has to actually change the world for the better in some dramatic way. To play devil's advocate, myself and quite a few other people probably have a keen interest in precisely what the nature and vision of Apple's long-term research was, even a decade ago. People like Bret think far beyond time scales that measure a single decade.
- H8crilA 6y ago
  NDAs are a joke at larger scale (and pretty much anything important is of larger scale). A lot of Facebook internals are an exact clone of Google's due to poaching.
  - rl3 6y ago
    The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process to respect a myriad of complex legal restrictions. Imagine your profession is to envision the future. Now imagine the companies you've worked for all have very restrictive NDAs. You can't reason out the future very well when pieces of this thought tree have veritable locks on them; their presence alone jarring to creativity itself.
    - donatj 6y ago
      > It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process Such this. Everything I build, regardless of for who, ends up having a very similar smell. I reached conclusions about how things work well years ago. It’s difficult to reinvent the wheel when you already feel like you’ve perfected it.
      - rangoon626 6y ago
        It would be like expecting a woodworker to come up with new techniques for each project. You develop a style, a way of doing things, and your employer is buying that from you.
        dannyw 6y ago
        There’s a very big difference between “I implement services this way because I’ve learned from google it is the most reliable” and “in 2022 Apple is going to launch VR goggles.”
    - q-big 6y ago
      > The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. I would rather claim that this is a peril of laziness.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    NDAs aside, there's a huge amount of knowledge diffusion throughout all industries. (And, if there weren't, gaining "experience" wouldn't be worth much. Why would I hire you as a senior person if you were literally unable to apply anything you learned in prior jobs?)
  - cainxinth 6y ago
    NDAs are notoriously difficult to enforce, especially when the party demanding the agreement is significantly more sophisticated and resourced than the party it hopes to constrain the liberties of. Like say Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
  - webmobdev 6y ago
    And that's why many of these tech giants (Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay) have illegal agreements not to poach or hire each others top employees for a certain period of time. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Had, ideally.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  This. It took me a couple years to realize I was the type that invents over 10 years out. It is fun to do, but the tricky part is knowing when to file IP.
ksec 6y ago
There were a few tweets about HomePod and AirPod Max's NDA being signed around 5 years ago from ex-employees. It was deleted within hours if not minutes.
vlovich123 6y ago
NDAs generally have a 5 year duration. It’s possible there are longer ones, just the one’s I have signed have not contained anything longer. Source: worked at Apple, Google, and Facebook among many others and have signed many many NDAs.
- woofie11 6y ago
  MIT's NDAs never expire. #krueger #epstein #...
flixic 6y ago
I have a memory of Bret Victor tweeting something about how TouchBar was something he worked on. TouchBar was released more than 5 years later after he left. Found the tweet: https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=21 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=2... (Tweeted on the day TouchBar was announced; 8 years later)
egsmi 6y ago
They expire. People legally write whole books about their time at Apple. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37638098-creative-selection https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37638098-creative-select...

by dannyw 6y ago

rl3 6y ago

I think visions can play out far beyond ten years, and their disclosure could potentially further cement existing power structures, such as Apple. Of course, relying upon NDAs in lieu of real trust is trash anyways. Ideally, an [extremely well treated and compensated] team could maintain strict confidence based on ideology alone. Your mission just has to actually change the world for the better in some dramatic way. To play devil's advocate, myself and quite a few other people probably have a keen interest in precisely what the nature and vision of Apple's long-term research was, even a decade ago. People like Bret think far beyond time scales that measure a single decade.

H8crilA 6y ago
NDAs are a joke at larger scale (and pretty much anything important is of larger scale). A lot of Facebook internals are an exact clone of Google's due to poaching.
- rl3 6y ago
  The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process to respect a myriad of complex legal restrictions. Imagine your profession is to envision the future. Now imagine the companies you've worked for all have very restrictive NDAs. You can't reason out the future very well when pieces of this thought tree have veritable locks on them; their presence alone jarring to creativity itself.
  - donatj 6y ago
    > It's kind of unrealistic to expect a human being to somehow rigorously partition their creative process Such this. Everything I build, regardless of for who, ends up having a very similar smell. I reached conclusions about how things work well years ago. It’s difficult to reinvent the wheel when you already feel like you’ve perfected it.
    - rangoon626 6y ago
      It would be like expecting a woodworker to come up with new techniques for each project. You develop a style, a way of doing things, and your employer is buying that from you.
      - dannyw 6y ago
        There’s a very big difference between “I implement services this way because I’ve learned from google it is the most reliable” and “in 2022 Apple is going to launch VR goggles.”
  - q-big 6y ago
    > The perils of unlimited money: culture collapse and technologicical groupthink that stifles true innovation. I would rather claim that this is a peril of laziness.
- ghaff 6y ago
  NDAs aside, there's a huge amount of knowledge diffusion throughout all industries. (And, if there weren't, gaining "experience" wouldn't be worth much. Why would I hire you as a senior person if you were literally unable to apply anything you learned in prior jobs?)
- cainxinth 6y ago
  NDAs are notoriously difficult to enforce, especially when the party demanding the agreement is significantly more sophisticated and resourced than the party it hopes to constrain the liberties of. Like say Apple, the most valuable company in the world.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  And that's why many of these tech giants (Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay) have illegal agreements not to poach or hire each others top employees for a certain period of time. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Had, ideally.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
This. It took me a couple years to realize I was the type that invents over 10 years out. It is fun to do, but the tricky part is knowing when to file IP.

ksec 6y ago

There were a few tweets about HomePod and AirPod Max's NDA being signed around 5 years ago from ex-employees. It was deleted within hours if not minutes.

vlovich123 6y ago

NDAs generally have a 5 year duration. It’s possible there are longer ones, just the one’s I have signed have not contained anything longer. Source: worked at Apple, Google, and Facebook among many others and have signed many many NDAs.

woofie11 6y ago
MIT's NDAs never expire. #krueger #epstein #...

flixic 6y ago

I have a memory of Bret Victor tweeting something about how TouchBar was something he worked on. TouchBar was released more than 5 years later after he left. Found the tweet: https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=21 https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/791767756928462848?s=2... (Tweeted on the day TouchBar was announced; 8 years later)

egsmi 6y ago

They expire. People legally write whole books about their time at Apple. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37638098-creative-selection https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37638098-creative-select...