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Companies do have recourse. It's called treating your employees well enough that they don't leave. Except one person is part of a team that produced the IP. So

Companies do have recourse. It's called treating your employees well enough that they don't leave. Except one person is part of a team that produced the IP. So they would always have access to IP worth more than their salary (since salary x NTeamMembers must be <= 100% of the IP value). So even if the team members were paid every dime of the value they've created, a single person would always be able to earn more by stealing IP/trade secrets.

bsder 12y ago
You have a lot of incorrect assumptions. First wrong assumption: that one person can carry 100% if the IP with them. That's simply not possible for anything remotely complex. Companies regularly have trouble managing software when they own the people and the source code. Any single individual only can carry a small portion of the knowledge. Second wrong assumption: technology is complete when "stolen". Something like a semiconductor process is always live and being debugged. In 4 years, that knowledge will move a VAST amount and what you "stole" has no value. Third wrong assumption: a company can incorporate the "stolen" knowledge into its business. Semiconductor processes rely on many things which are specific to a company. Back when Digital Equipment Corporation was working with Samsung to second-source the 21264, it took dozens of colocated engineers almost 24 months to work out and paper over the differences between the semiconductor processes. As I pointed out, this sounds like there was a political struggle for technology direction at TSMC and Liang lost. Really, at that point his ONLY option is to leave. His employer has said "we don't believe in your assessment". The fact that he turned out to be right and led Samsung to leapfrog TSMC is TSMC's own fault. In addition, people are discounting the amount of money Samsung spent to develop that process WAY too much. Samsung is a $150 billion a year company and can allocate vast resources when it decides to. TSMC is a lot smaller.

bsder 12y ago

You have a lot of incorrect assumptions. First wrong assumption: that one person can carry 100% if the IP with them. That's simply not possible for anything remotely complex. Companies regularly have trouble managing software when they own the people and the source code. Any single individual only can carry a small portion of the knowledge. Second wrong assumption: technology is complete when "stolen". Something like a semiconductor process is always live and being debugged. In 4 years, that knowledge will move a VAST amount and what you "stole" has no value. Third wrong assumption: a company can incorporate the "stolen" knowledge into its business. Semiconductor processes rely on many things which are specific to a company. Back when Digital Equipment Corporation was working with Samsung to second-source the 21264, it took dozens of colocated engineers almost 24 months to work out and paper over the differences between the semiconductor processes. As I pointed out, this sounds like there was a political struggle for technology direction at TSMC and Liang lost. Really, at that point his ONLY option is to leave. His employer has said "we don't believe in your assessment". The fact that he turned out to be right and led Samsung to leapfrog TSMC is TSMC's own fault. In addition, people are discounting the amount of money Samsung spent to develop that process WAY too much. Samsung is a $150 billion a year company and can allocate vast resources when it decides to. TSMC is a lot smaller.