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Says who? Anyone that's ever been involved with technology businesses for 30+ years knows you risk your relationship when you breach confidence. It's common

Says who? Anyone that's ever been involved with technology businesses for 30+ years knows you risk your relationship when you breach confidence. It's common sense. Of course, common sense is rarely common, which is why we have NDAs.

k2xl 13y ago
Have to disagree. If hundreds of people are "invited" it's almost like a mini conference. In fact, the entire issue was that Apple never created a relationship with him in the first place. I totally understand why under those circumstances someone wouldn't assume what was said is confidential.
- anonyfuss 13y ago
  Well, now you know better; unless explicitly told 'you can talk about this', don't talk about it.
msandford 13y ago
Right, but you just assumed the model for life is "confidential unless told otherwise" and I'm saying that assertion doesn't necessarily hold. Your relationship with a secret lover? Yeah, probably. Does that same assumption hold if you're drunk, telling one of your friends (who is also drunk) something at a bar? Probably not. So what we've discovered is that context matters. The folks at Apple treated the negotiation with Derek the same as all the folks at the labels (where secrecy is probably the default and nothing needed to be said). Derek assumed that the people he was talking to understood the nature of his business (much, much different than a big music label) and would tell him if he needed to keep his trap shut. No such words were said and thus, he assumed everything was cool. Was it potentially stupid of him to assume everything was cool? Yeah maybe. But at the same time, why is it his responsibility to think to ask if it's OK to share this information? How can he know there is any confidence to be breached? I'm essentially arguing that this isn't such a clear-cut case as you make it out to be. Since context matters.

k2xl 13y ago

Have to disagree. If hundreds of people are "invited" it's almost like a mini conference. In fact, the entire issue was that Apple never created a relationship with him in the first place. I totally understand why under those circumstances someone wouldn't assume what was said is confidential.

anonyfuss 13y ago
Well, now you know better; unless explicitly told 'you can talk about this', don't talk about it.

msandford 13y ago

Right, but you just assumed the model for life is "confidential unless told otherwise" and I'm saying that assertion doesn't necessarily hold. Your relationship with a secret lover? Yeah, probably. Does that same assumption hold if you're drunk, telling one of your friends (who is also drunk) something at a bar? Probably not. So what we've discovered is that context matters. The folks at Apple treated the negotiation with Derek the same as all the folks at the labels (where secrecy is probably the default and nothing needed to be said). Derek assumed that the people he was talking to understood the nature of his business (much, much different than a big music label) and would tell him if he needed to keep his trap shut. No such words were said and thus, he assumed everything was cool. Was it potentially stupid of him to assume everything was cool? Yeah maybe. But at the same time, why is it his responsibility to think to ask if it's OK to share this information? How can he know there is any confidence to be breached? I'm essentially arguing that this isn't such a clear-cut case as you make it out to be. Since context matters.