5 ms·
Easier said than done. Your employer would probably prefer you to stay and build it exclusively for them, rather than leave and also sell to their competitors.
by steve_taylor 3y ago
Easier said than done. Your employer would probably prefer you to stay and build it exclusively for them, rather than leave and also sell to their competitors.
There’s also the issue of trust. For some reason, managers tend to trust third parties more than their own employees. For example, they won’t think twice about using open source libraries with a single hobbyist maintainer, but often feel uneasy about using an open source library built and maintained by one of their subordinates. I’m not sure why this happens. There must be a name for the phenomenon. I suspect the same thing will play out when you try to pivot from employee to supplier.
- Gareth321 3y agoYes I've never seen an employer sign such an agreement above. They'll either buy it off the shelf, or built it in house. Why would they enable an employee to leave to build a product externally to then buy for an inflated price?
- ramraj07 3y agoI have. If you’re good enough and have decided to leave because you’re bored, this is one way the org can still retain your services and better, if you succeed, they have diversified into one more adjacent problem space with the investment in your startup.
- raincole 3y ago> There must be a name for the phenomenon. Blissful ignorance. If we actually knew the library has only one single hobbyist maintainer, we would be worried. But often we intentionally don't look at the fact. We just tell ourselves "well it's open source so there must be multiple eyes on it..."
- vivegi 3y agoI guess the maxim Familiarity breeds contempt captures that.