It's not just FAANG that does this - it was pioneered, iirc, by GE back when Edison was still running the joint I haven't worked anywhere "interesting" where t

It's not just FAANG that does this - it was pioneered, iirc, by GE back when Edison was still running the joint I haven't worked anywhere "interesting" where this was not the case (except one non-profit in college) That said, just because your employment agreement says what you do on your own time on your own equipment belongs to the company only does if the legal system decides it does If you work for, say, a cybersecurity/network monitoring company and you develop a novel way of doing monitoring "on your own" ... yeah: that's gonna belong to the company If you work at the same place and develop a clever way to increase fuel economy on an airplane engine? No, the company won't own it - because it's too far afield from their core competencies/areas of interest The best way to approach this, though, without getting lawyers involved unnecessarily, is to get sign-off from $JOB that $PROJECT is not "theirs" ...and then stay the heck away from the company's core business with whatever your "project(s)" may be