Key quote: Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not related to your employer’s line of work is yours, even if the contract you si

Key quote: Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not related to your employer’s line of work is yours, even if the contract you signed says otherwise (from California state law, but it could reasonably be directly in a contract from a reasonable employer) Joel makes the case that if you work for Google, this is meaningless because what isn't related to Google? They do everything. This makes sense to me, and in Google's defense, they pay the part. But then Joel goes on to make the case that "related" is such a vague term that as an employee you can't safely depend on it, even if you work for a company with a narrower scope (ie nearly any other company). I don't know, this seems pretty far fetched to me. Say, you work at SoundCloud and your side project is an iOS game. Wrote it on your own device, in your own time, and so on and so forth. That is so obviously not related that I have a very hard time seeing how, with a clause such as this, any potential judge or jury could decide otherwise. Let alone the reputation damage SoundCloud could get trying to lawyer up on this shit. It just makes no sense. Therefore, I still feel it's a draconian piece of contract and that, unless you apply at a company that truly does everything or pays top dollar, it shouldn't be a reasonable expectation to sign stuff like that.