

Fallacy of the Non-disclosure Agreement - tigerec
http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/189/Startup-Reality-Distortion-3-The-Fallacy-Of-the-Non-Disclosure-Agreement-NDA.aspx

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hira_khan
Sounds like interesting argument. But what about processes , that might get
the company some advantage? Replication might become easy. But the authors
perspective is really strong

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bmaier
It is my understanding that NDA's only protect propietary and unique
information in a very narrow scope, It does not protect things that could be
found by others in the public realm or that are readily known by others in the
space.

So the general idea then would not seem to be protected. Only things like
algorithms, some source code, some processes, and very unique customer lists
are protected. For the most part almost every NDA I've seen is too broad in
scope to be truly enforceable.

In my opinion you walk a fine line by trying to get people to sign the NDA and
in the end you turn a lot of people off if you push too hard. It seems to me
that the only people really hung up on NDAs are the people who are sharing
things they shouldnt be sharing in the first place.

 __Note: I'm not talking about NDAs in M &A situations or in employee company
relations and partnership agreements for established companies...things like
these actually do hold weight. Essentially I'm agreeing that the NDA is often
focused on too greatly by early stage companies

