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Your physicist friend solving the "technical research-level problem" should have evaluated whether it was a real problem, or a problem the company artificially

Your physicist friend solving the "technical research-level problem" should have evaluated whether it was a real problem, or a problem the company artificially created for themselves. If it was a real problem, and the company ignored his solution, then take the solution to market and become a competitor. If it was an artificial problem only found at that one company, then be very stingy about any effort you put into solving it. Give no free thought to the problem outside of work. Find some real problems to work on instead.

alok-g 3y ago
>> Your physicist friend ... should have evaluated whether it was a real problem ... I do not have the facts around this, however knowing him, I would guess that it was a real problem. >> ... and the company ignored his solution, then take the solution to market and become a competitor. As you know, this is not so straightforward in practice: * Not everyone is a entrepreneur, for whatever reason that is. * Not everyone has a brand to be able to raise money. * It may not be wise for investors to fund a project completing with an established/powerful mid-size company that owns a wide range in that space. * Some projects may require large investments and teams especially when the other side is a big company. * The big companies deploy all kind of schemes if they see a threat. * One of the threats is the existing intellectual property rights in that space that the company would already have. * As the invention was already made when the person was employed at the company, the invention as such likely already belongs to the company (as per typical employment agreements that most do not care to read), and this already forms a threat falling in the above bullet point. * The corporate politics would start at the newly started company itself becoming an internal threat. * And so on. Hopefully you do not see all above as unreal, a fake problem. :-) Not to say there aren't successes -- We hear about those so often. [Edit:] Well, someone cited a story like that right here in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39500316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39500316
- Buttons840 3y ago
  Yes. I said he should do this and that. That's more forceful and judgemental than I intended. I meant it only as a philosophy to consider, but didn't know how to soften my message while keeping it succinct.
noobermin 3y ago
I feel like people who have a choice are lucky. Sometimes the boss wants you to come up with a problem that won't solve it but will "work on a solution" specifically using your ideas, that way they can be even more efficient (work even less)

alok-g 3y ago

>> Your physicist friend ... should have evaluated whether it was a real problem ... I do not have the facts around this, however knowing him, I would guess that it was a real problem. >> ... and the company ignored his solution, then take the solution to market and become a competitor. As you know, this is not so straightforward in practice: * Not everyone is a entrepreneur, for whatever reason that is. * Not everyone has a brand to be able to raise money. * It may not be wise for investors to fund a project completing with an established/powerful mid-size company that owns a wide range in that space. * Some projects may require large investments and teams especially when the other side is a big company. * The big companies deploy all kind of schemes if they see a threat. * One of the threats is the existing intellectual property rights in that space that the company would already have. * As the invention was already made when the person was employed at the company, the invention as such likely already belongs to the company (as per typical employment agreements that most do not care to read), and this already forms a threat falling in the above bullet point. * The corporate politics would start at the newly started company itself becoming an internal threat. * And so on. Hopefully you do not see all above as unreal, a fake problem. :-) Not to say there aren't successes -- We hear about those so often. [Edit:] Well, someone cited a story like that right here in this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39500316 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39500316

Buttons840 3y ago
Yes. I said he should do this and that. That's more forceful and judgemental than I intended. I meant it only as a philosophy to consider, but didn't know how to soften my message while keeping it succinct.

noobermin 3y ago

I feel like people who have a choice are lucky. Sometimes the boss wants you to come up with a problem that won't solve it but will "work on a solution" specifically using your ideas, that way they can be even more efficient (work even less)