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I can understand having this policy in place for projects that directly compete with a company. Working on a search engine at home when you're working on search

I can understand having this policy in place for projects that directly compete with a company. Working on a search engine at home when you're working on search at Google, or working on a banking product for farmers when you do the same thing at work could be a direct conflict of interest and incentivize unethical or possibly even criminal behavior. I think setting some guidelines in place for that kind of thing is reasonable. But some companies take this to an extreme. I was working on a niche clothing brand at home in my spare time for example when I wanted to work for a gaming startup. They were giving me such a repulsively hard time about my side project even though the clothing had literally nothing conceivably close to the company's business model. It's so stupid because companies should try and hire people that have diverse experiences and are working hard to achieve something.

icedchai 3y ago
If it had nothing to do with their business, why did you even tell them about your side project? I would've just kept my mouth shut.
- logicalmonster 3y ago
  You can do this and I know of people who have done this. In virtually all cases, it's never going to come up. But, for companies that are batshit anal about side-projects, they're going to make you sign some onerous contract and have management that are assholes about this kind of thing. What happens in the event that you "hit the lottery" and some side-project becomes a big deal worth a lot of money? Somebody from your company is eventually going to find out about it: maybe from a public interview or from public records. If they put 2 + 2 together about when you built this and figure out that they can file some legal claim to it, you're in a mess of a legal situation that you don't need to be in. Safer to put your cards on the table and make sure there's nothing in an employment agreement that puts something you really care about at risk. The percentage of companies that are very anal about side-projects isn't substantial. They need you more than you need them and it's safer to be honest and look elsewhere for employment.

icedchai 3y ago

If it had nothing to do with their business, why did you even tell them about your side project? I would've just kept my mouth shut.

logicalmonster 3y ago
You can do this and I know of people who have done this. In virtually all cases, it's never going to come up. But, for companies that are batshit anal about side-projects, they're going to make you sign some onerous contract and have management that are assholes about this kind of thing. What happens in the event that you "hit the lottery" and some side-project becomes a big deal worth a lot of money? Somebody from your company is eventually going to find out about it: maybe from a public interview or from public records. If they put 2 + 2 together about when you built this and figure out that they can file some legal claim to it, you're in a mess of a legal situation that you don't need to be in. Safer to put your cards on the table and make sure there's nothing in an employment agreement that puts something you really care about at risk. The percentage of companies that are very anal about side-projects isn't substantial. They need you more than you need them and it's safer to be honest and look elsewhere for employment.