
My Ideas, My Boss’s Property - jcabala
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/opinion/my-ideas-my-bosss-property.html
======
zecho
Maybe don't sign these types of contracts?

We are fortunate enough that even the most mediocre among us can hold out for
the next employer that doesn't demand this kind of control over you, or start
your own company. I don't give a shit what a company says about their culture
of work/life balance or whatever. If I see blanket IP clauses unrelated to
non-compete, or like arbitration clauses that remove us from civil courts
should a problem arise, I'm whistling on my way out the door.

I once saw a contract that stated I couldn't work in the field for TWO YEARS
after terminating. Not just large machine equipment, but ANY mobile/web
applications, related to integration with embedded systems or not. Yeah no
thanks.

Your mind should be available for rent for $100k/year or whatever your market
rate is these days but not for sale at that price. Sorry but I'm a Human as a
Service. If you want to own me, you'll have to come to a better valuation.

~~~
A_COMPUTER
I basically did whistle my way out the door because of this.

I worked as a contractor for a very large defense company. After a year, they
offered me full time employment. I specifically asked if there was a "we own
everything you make" clause in the employment agreement, but I was assured
there was not. I went through about five digital form contracts, and when I
got to the last one, it had the clause in there. I told the woman that I
wanted to amend the contract and she huffed and told me they don't do that. I
replied that I was promised that I would not have to agree to such a clause,
and she told me that it was mandatory, so I could take it or leave it. I asked
if there was anyone in HR I could talk to about this, and was told no. So I
stood up and said "please escort me out the door, starting immediately I am
resigning. At the gate, I would like the security guard to search my things."
(it was a secured facility, and I didn't want anyone to claim I was stealing
anything later.) She asked me if I was serious, and I said yes. I was berated
for how much time and money was wasted on getting me ready for employment, and
I replied I was promised repeatedly that I would not have to sign away my
rights, and this was absolutely a deal breaker and I didn't appreciate being
told repeatedly this would be honored until the very last minute. So really,
my time was being wasted too. This really, really didn't go over well. My
heart was beating like crazy the entire time. My former boss was furious, the
HR person was furious. The security guard was cool about it though.

~~~
cynicalkane
If you had a written promise, could you sue?

~~~
kookiekrak
Would you work for an employer that you had to sue to force them to allow you
to work there?

~~~
LukeB_UK
I think the point would be because of the time wasting on the employer's part.

------
keypusher
I've always been particularly confused by the contract clauses which specify
that all work of the employee during their time at the company is property of
the company itself. Does this mean that if I develop some completely unrelated
software in my spare time while working as a programmer at a large company,
that the software I created at home also belongs to my employer? What if I was
to write a book during that same time? Is anyone aware of legal battles fought
over this type of contract clause? It seems fairly prevalent in the industry
today.

~~~
gkoberger
I dislike it (and most forward-thinking companies wouldn't risk scaring off
people who are the type that work on their own time), however I can see the
reasons.

How do they know you did it at home, not during work hours? How do they know
it didn't affect your work? If you're salaried, there aren't set start/stop
times. How do they know they weren't paying you at the time you came up with
the idea, or thought through a problem? Did you do it on a work laptop? Did
you use a copy of Photoshop that work paid for? Is it something you did for
your job, and now you want to sell it to other people -- even if the code has
been rewritten?

Again, I don't think it's very enforceable or even a good idea. However, I can
understand why a lawyer would slip it in.

~~~
goostavos
That's an _awful_ lot of maybes. Maybe I was a good employee, met my
deadlines, respected both company time and my own, and also enjoyed working on
pet projects in my free time. It is absolutely absurd that a company feels
entitled to my personal work because of "maybe."

~~~
michaelochurch
_Maybe I was a good employee, met my deadlines, respected both company time
and my own, and also enjoyed working on pet projects in my free time. It is
absolutely absurd that a company feels entitled to my personal work because of
"maybe."_

Organizations tend toward pessimism because people respond more strongly to
shame, insult, and embarrassment (of themselves and others) than to victory,
pride, altruism, and shared glory. They turn toward a certain paranoia. That's
why there's so much HR literature on how to conduct "low performer" witch
hunts (get those time thieves!) while companies don't do the least thing to
support high performers (except offer them more money when they seem likely to
leave).

Ultimately, most things controlled by humans devolve into feudalistic,
dysfunctional reputation economies in which the trade of social credibility
becomes the only thing that matters, and the organization's original purpose
is either forgotten, ignored, or half-assed. There are counterexamples and
exceptions and processes that prevent this, but they're uncommon. Most
companies have much fear of the humiliation of "that guy" stealing time to
launch his own career, and only a slight background hum (if even that, as
sometimes it's dead silence) of fear for the real existential threats:
crumbling morale, widespread distrust, and the death of innovation.

~~~
acjohnson55
_Organizations tend toward pessimism because people respond more strongly to
shame, insult, and embarrassment (of themselves and others) than to victory,
pride, altruism, and shared glory._

My understanding is the exact opposite [1]. At least that what we were often
taught in our teacher prep classes. I know that other research indicates that
people are more loss averse than gain seeking [2], but I'm not sure that
indicates that a pessimistic environment is actually productive in the long-
run. I think that may be your point though, in your second paragraph.

[1] [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/family-
affair/200809/rew...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/family-
affair/200809/rewards-are-better-punishment-here-s-why) (applying to children)

[2] [http://www.inc.com/magazine/201304/issie-lapowsky/get-
more-d...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/201304/issie-lapowsky/get-more-done-
dont-reward-failure.html)

~~~
ndeine
Yes, that is his point. My interpretation:

He is saying that more people on average will respond more directly and
immediately to punishment than reinforcement.

The context is that organizations' behavior influence via punishment is a
short-term tactic: in the long run, we would like to believe that
reinforcement poses a net gain. However cultural influence results in short-
term behavior control tactics from organizations prevailing, and little heed
paid to the tradeoff.

One might also argue that it is cheaper in the short term to punish than to
reward, and this further perpetuates the downward cycle as a staple of
organization culture.

------
yoamro
.......remind me again how the courts in Texas work?

"In 2004 a court in Texas ordered a former Alcatel employee to give his former
employer a software algorithm — which existed entirely in his mind. The idea,
which he was still working on and was still too abstract and incomplete to be
a patentable invention, was nevertheless deemed the property of Alcatel,
forcing the ex-employee to turn over the algorithm in the months after he was
fired."

~~~
karmajunkie
Mostly, they don't.

Judges in Texas are generally elected, and so you get all the same kinds of
electoral corruption that you have anytime a politician raises campaign funds.

~~~
ewoodrich
Most states have local judicial elections of some sort. Texas has _partisan_
judicial elections, and your point very much stands.

------
zizee
_From Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, the individual inventor is a hero in our
popular imagination_

Am I reading this incorrectly? Are they promoting the idea that Steve Jobs is
an individual inventor?

~~~
redwall_hp
He definitely wasn't. And more importantly, neither was Edison.

~~~
jonny_eh
Patents with his name on it:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/ste...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/24/technology/steve-
jobs-patents.html?ref=multimedia)

While he didn't invent all that stuff himself, it's not like he had nothing to
do with any of it.

~~~
judk
That's not what "individual" means. Both of then ran organizations of
inventors.

------
barryaustin
Hyper-aggressive lawyering by a powerful entity can be an early indicator of
how they treat people and use power.

The important thing is to actually read and understand the agreements that
employers expect you to sign.

Some examples of what would catch my attention:

* Restricting what activities you can't do on your own time, even when there's no harm to the company.

* Playing games with definitions (especially key terms like "Invention") and loose language (like "related").

* Requiring unnecessarily high burden of proof, for example advance description of all IP that you have created and want to exclude from assigning to the employer.

If you see something you don't like, negotiate changes. If the employer won't
work with you to make an acceptable agreement, then don't sign.

 _Edited for clarity_

~~~
ChristianMarks
Suppose you do describe some IP for exclusion. Does this mean subsequent
improvements or modifications undertaken on your own time and on your own
equipment are not excluded?

------
PythonicAlpha
That is the reason, I am against the term "Intellectual Property".

Ideas are (naturally) belonging to the person who had the ideal. "Intellectual
property" in contrast is "owned" to those that have enough money to buy it.

This notion of making more and more parts of human life own-able and thus
putting a price tag on it, is just devaluating these parts and our own living.

In result, we will be slaves of the big corporations and the billionaires of
the world.

~~~
dfa0
Yeah, but the American dreams is to have one good idea and milk it for the
rest of your natural life, then pass on the rights to your offspring who can
milk it...and so on.

That way you can exponentially create useless people.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
Yeah, but the American dream does not function to much longer this way.
Because more and more people are born in bad situations, they have to take
jobs to earn some money to start -- sign such contracts ... and you are
enslaved.

Even if you get rid of these ... Than you have a good idea, only to find, that
your idea violates dozens of corporate patents ... and your idea is waste.

Thus the dream is just a shadow of the past ... and propaganda for a system
that does not hold its promises any more.

------
gobengo
My solution to this has been:

* When I need to work on something, I think of the library I wish existed to get it done. Anything I need that is employer-specific should be configurable

* I make the library and release it with an MIT license

* I then use that library to accomplish my goal

This has the benefit of usually making me write better software. And it
motivates me to make the open code better quality and better documented. This
means the work is more valuable even to my colleagues that also eventually
need to work with it.

~~~
Xylakant
> * I make the library and release it with an MIT license

This might get you into trouble. Basically, anything you touch during your
work hours is tainted by your employers copyrights. You're not allowed to
decide which license that code should be under. So either you write that whole
library in your spare time (and on top of that do your regular day job) or get
your employers permission to release the code.

In general the approach is sound and I'd support it, but others might or might
not.

------
minglafille
Confucious held that an idea or invention, once emerged, belongs to the whole
world rather than the one that came up with it, this may be a contributing
factor that China has such an IP issue, though it may be blasphemous, but it
is another way to see the world.

------
rahimnathwani
If part of your job is to create ideas within some domain, and you can't
control exactly when said ideas will crystallize, should it matter whether you
'got' an idea whilst 'at work' rather than in the shower, or on the way to
work?

The line is difficult to draw precisely with legal language, so companies err
on the side which protects them best (hoping employees will sign anyway, given
they've already gone through the interview process and are likely to have
similar terms at other employers).

~~~
the_ancient
The bigger problem is not the ideas that relate to your every day job... But
Say your a Aerospace Engineer working on rockets and on your off time you
write a scifi book, after your done you take it to a publisher, they publish
it, and then your employer claims ownership over that book... and sues you

That type of shit happens all the time, and while that is an extreme example,
there are all kinds of examples like a programmer getting paid to work on a
billing system writes a childrens game for which the company claims ownership
over... etc etc etc.

The idea that just because your employed means you should give up any and all
rights to your brain is ridiculous...

There has to be a happy median there somewhere

~~~
vanattab
Any examples of when such a thing has happened? I see how those clauses could
be construde to apply to such a situation but I have never heard of such an
extreme example in practice.

~~~
the_ancient
I am trying to find the case, it was a few years ago that I read about the
case... it was settled out of court I believe so never went to verdict....

That is the thing with these cases, 90% of the time the result is exactly like
the post here earlier today, the former employer makes demands that the
employee cease and desist distributing "their" work and the employee having
little resources gives in, it never makes it to court.

------
PythonicAlpha
Don't think, that in Germany the situation is that much better. We might not
have those agreements in the contracts, since in Germany there are (luckily)
many regulations what can be put into contracts. But the German law has also
some specialties: For example, when you make an invention in your free time,
even when it has _nothing_ to do with your current job, you must first ask
your employer, if he wants to buy the invention, if you want or not.

~~~
dave809
What's stopping you from setting an outrageous price?

~~~
PythonicAlpha
I don't think, that you are free to set your own price. But of course, I am
not current in these special law topics. But in Germany, as in many other
countries: If it goes to court, you will loose against a big company.

It was an other situation, but a lawyer once told me, what happens when such
things go to court: The corporation will bring 10 witnesses against you and
will bring 10 experts certifying what the corporation needs.

And than you will be very alone and be gracious to get even a little money.
You will loose your job anyway.

~~~
Xylakant
You're not free to set your own price, there are guidelines set forth in the
law (ArbnErfG, § 11 Vergütungsrichtlinien) - which also means that the
employer cannot undercut those guidelines and force you to hand your invention
over for free. If there's a disagreement about the price, there's a mediation
set forth in the law, so the first thing would not be a court case.

In general, german courts are quite employee friendly, so seriously, your
employer would probably be at least as afraid to go to court as you'd be.
Maybe not if it's a litigation-happy megacorp, but the bulk of german
companies is medium-sized (Mittelstand) and they tend to shy away from court
cases.

------
yalogin
Do all the new startups also require such a blanket IP clause? Or is it
something only the older/bigger companies do?

~~~
morganherlocker
Many do, but as an employee, you should treat them as negotiable. An agreement
where the company has default ownership of ideas in the vertical and you have
default ownership of everything else is a reasonable compromise that I think
most people can agree to. For ideas that are in the vertical, you can ask for
permission on a case by case basis. I have this exact system in place and it
has worked flawlessly. It requires lots of communication, and a certain amount
of trust, but it is much better than the alternative. Personally, I see it as
a moral imperative to not sell away exclusive rights to my thoughts.

------
anonymousDan
This is the number one thing I would like to see any kind of IT labour
organization campaign against. I don't really care about much else, so long as
I am free to work on whatever I want in my own time and with my own resources
so long as it doesn't interfere directly with my employer's line of business.

------
jbrooksuk
I'm extremely lucky that my employer has the "do whatever you want out of
work" attitude to things. I wanted to start selling Smart Watches, so I asked
my boss and his reply was "it's your time, so long as it doesn't take up paid
work time, you're free to do whatever".

------
Unosolo
On the topic of Restraint of trade
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraint_of_trade))
clause which some companies insist on: in very few cases a company will take a
former employee to court over a breach of such clause and then the company is
still likely to lose the case unless the restriction was narrow, specific,
reasonable. Usually there also need to be consideration
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration))
for giving up some of the freedom of trade.

------
collyw
I worked for a major mobile phone manufacturer a while ago. They offered a
pathetic £200 (I think) for any inventions you submitted to them, and they got
a patent on. Funnily enough, I kept the ideas to myself.

(Has anyone come up with a phone / camera that does automatic tagging based on
GPS location? Your phone knows you are in front of some famous landmark, and
tags the photos with the name. I assume it has been done by now, but this was
when the first phones were starting to incorporate GPS and it seemed like a
novel idea).

------
johnrob
I think the rule of thumb for assuring your ownership is: 1) don't use company
time or equipment, 2) don't make something that could compete with your
employer's products.

------
olefoo
One change that would lessen the burden of the patent system is mandatory
licensing. It doesn't matter who invented what, everyone pays a percentage of
revenue into the pot and it gets spewed out per usage. The sticky bit being
that you couldn't prevent someone else from using a patented idea. Boom, no
more hold ups; no more threatening to kill someones business because of greed.

------
ChuckFrank
I signed one of these contracts in 2006. I went to work for a company in
product design and development, and since my work was new product design and
development, everything I worked on at that time became the property of the
company.

There was also a two-year non-compete clause that forbid me from working with
any of their direct competitors afterwards.

I signed the contract because I wanted to do the work, and because I knew that
all the other places would have me sign the same contract. I also thought that
this company was the most progressive of the group. Finally, I wanted my ideas
to be funded, and so in exchange for the time and the resources that they
promised to put towards my work, I would provide them with the ideas. We were
both taking risks to achieve a greater goal together.

In the end, they reneged on their side of the bargain and didn't provide the
necessary funding to complete the production and testing that the product
design needed. After trying to get the work done myself in-house by funneling
time and energy away from other projects towards mine, it came to a head and
it was acknowledged that they weren't going to fund the work and that we
needed to part ways.

On the day that decision was made, I was escorted out, leaving everything
behind, my notebooks, and all my digital research files.

Several years later, when they won a large contract for work that was in the
area that I was working on, my manager took me out for lunch and said that I
had just been about 5 years ahead of the curve, and that they hadn't had the
resources to carry that type of research and development that far ahead of a
clear billable opportunity.

When I asked him about the files and the notebooks, he said that nothing ever
happened to them, they were all just filed away in the archives.

I left understanding their situation well. It's hard to fund something when
it's not clear when the payoff will materialize, and when it did materialize,
they were able to get there first anyways. So the loss of five years in R&D
wasn't noticed, by them, their clients, or the industry.

The lesson that I did learn was - back up your files offsite, and have
duplicate notebooks, one that is your private notebook and one that is your
office notebook. Because when you sign a contract like this, you have to be
prepared to leave everything onsite when it ends.

The irony with the 2 year non-compete is that after I left, non of the other
firms were interested in even discussing the work that I had done. Which is
why these guys were the only ones that I could have worked with in the first
place, and it's why they were the only ones able to secure the contracts when
the need for the technology finally arrived.

And there wasn't much I could do with the technology myself, since it was
untested and unproved and I couldn't fund the research myself. So the non-
compete clause didn't impact me much either.

Perhaps this sheds some light on why the contracts exist and why people like
me sign them.

------
srs0001
Oddly, I was thinking about this exact topic this weekend. When I joined my
current company, I signed a document saying whatever I build belongs to the
company.

I'd like to go back and have this reversed. What is the best course of action?
Write a letter saying that what I create on my own time is my property, and
have the CEO or HR Manager sign it?

~~~
Duhck
You need to obtain a moonlighting clause. It gives you permission to work on
an idea or set of ideas. Your employer should have one available.

------
walshemj
If Mr Lobel is claiming to be a legal academic (a professor for fracks sake)
his lack of knowledge in how employment law devoped in common law
jurestrictions is truly shocking.

Employers owning employees ideas "related" to thier employment has been the
case for a very long time.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
"jurestrictions", can't tell if typo, clever pun on _jure_ , or unknown
legalese. Google gives me 2 English language pages with it on, a blog and a
forum thread - I'm going with typo for "jurisdiction".

~~~
walshemj
Yeh my proper pc died with a dead HDD last week I am on my backup notebook
which doesn't have all the plugines i normaly use :-)

------
ChristianMarks
I turned down a software job due to its all-encompassing, amoeba-like
intellectual property terms. Instead, I chose to work in the public sector,
which does not limit the freedom to pursue and own the intellectual work one
does on one's own time.

------
rukugu
I worked at such a company. I was given the contract to sign. No thanks.I quit
a short while after. Basically everything I built while working there was
supposedly their property.

------
naringas
what you grow on this land is mine; this land is mine. - civilization

this machine is mine; what you manufacture with it is mine --
industrialization

the ideas you come up with are mine; that idea is mine - ??

------
jrs235
These contracts are bunk, they are too one sided. They want to claim the
upside of my ideas and work but, if I write some software for a side project
which I make additional income on (which they'd want to claim ownership of)
and it fails and causes harm, are they going to take on the liability of
getting sued for it? Didn't think so.

Edit: I understand the law doesn't think they are bunk. This is my person
opinion about them and why they should be bunk.

------
islon
We’ve seen the end of physical slavery just to go into an era of intelectual
slavery.

------
11thEarlOfMar
My startup is compensating the engineers with restricted shares in the
corporation. When we go for funding, we will want the highest valuation we can
convince the investors of. One important valuation attribute is the
corporation's legal ownership of the intellectual property produced by the
engineers who build the system. That intellectual property is not just
patents, but the source code, web site design, system architecture, operating
processes and many other points. Basically, the intellectual property is what
ever the engineers create in the process of building the startup.

The restricted shares are granted under contractor agreements. Performing to
those agreements qualifies the restrictions on the shares to be lifted, in
effect vesting the the shares.

In order for the corporation to demonstrate that it has legal ownership of
everything the engineers have created, the contractor agreement they sign is
very explicit and verbose [1] about their informed decision to turn over
ownership of that IP to the company, and that the ownership they are being
given in the company is compensation for the intellectual property they
produce. The language specifically carves out -relevance- to the startup: "...
that are related to the business (present or future) of the Company or its
affiliates...".

None of them have any qualm about this, and fully understand the purpose and
value of turning over their creative fruits to the company.

I'd expect that this principle has to persist regardless of the size of the
company. The key to making it work is that the employee/inventor willfully
signs up to the legal restrictions the company places on them as payment for
their work and compensation for their creativity. I can easily imagine that
corporate attorneys who work to protect their employer's interests would push
the lines of what constitutes the scope of the company's claim over their
work. I'd guess that for every term that seems intrusive or abusive, there is
a precedent case somewhere that corporations can point to as justification for
it.

In the case of my startup, the language is specific that the invention is made
in the course of building the company, not from other unrelated activities.

[1] INVENTIONS. (a) Disclosure. I will promptly disclose In writing to the
Company all discoveries, developments, designs, ideas, improvements,
inventions, formulas, processes, techniques, know-how, and data (whether or
not patentable or registerable under copyright or similar statutes) made,
conceived, reduced to practice, or learned by me (either alone or jointly with
others) during the term of the Independent Contractor Agreement between the
Company and me and within 12 months thereafter (unless any such disclosure Is
prohibited by the terms of a commercially reasonable non-disclosure agreement
signed by me that Is meant to protect the trade secrets and confidentiality of
an employer subsequently employing me), that are related to the business
(present or future) of the Company or its affiliates, or which result from
tasks assigned to me by the Company, or from the use of facilities or
equipment owned, leased, or otherwise used by the Company or Its affiliates
(all of the foregoing are referred to in this Agreement as "Inventions"). (b)
Assignment of Inventions. I acknowledge and agree that all Inventions belong
to and shall be the sole property of the Company, subject to the provisions of
this Agreement. I hereby assign to the Company all rights, title, and interest
I may have or may acquire in and to all inventions. Both during and after the
term of the Independent Contractor Agreement between the Company and me, and
from time to time, I agree, promptly upon the request of the Company, to sign
and deliver to the Company such other documents as the Company considers
desirable to evidence the assignment to the Company of all rights I may have,
if any, in any Inventions and the Company's ownership of such Inventions.

~~~
6cxs2hd6
I'm not sure I understand this language:

> I will promptly disclose In writing to the Company all discoveries,
> developments, designs, ideas ...yada yada... made, conceived, reduced to
> practice, or learned by me (either alone or jointly with others) during the
> term of the Independent Contractor Agreement between the Company and me and
> within 12 months thereafter....

Let's I work for you, then quit -- or you fire me. Eleven months later, I'm
taking a shower, and have an idea related to your business. I am supposed to
disclose that to you, and you own it. Do I understand that correctly?

Edit: I wasn't the person who downvoted you. I'm genuinely asking.

~~~
acjohnson55
I find that part quite strange too. I can understand not being able to use
that knowledge in competition for a agreed-upon period of time, but I've never
signed anything that would require assignment of IP discovered/developed post-
engagement. That wouldn't fly with me.

------
outside1234
At Microsoft we don't have these contracts. You are free to work on whatever
after hours (with your own equipment and not using company resources).

~~~
solomone
This wasn't the case when I worked there 10 years ago. Check your paperwork.

~~~
outside1234
It changed with the launch of Windows Phone. They opened this up to enable
folks to write apps on their spare time and publish them.

------
unexistance
pretty sure this won't go away any time soon, so in the meantime, just jot
down your idea in your own device at break time.

My take on it, anything done / written during 'office-hour' will be deemed
company property.

~~~
krapp
Don't even do that. Don't take anything with personal projects on it anywhere
onto company property. Don't even dare plug it in and surf the web during your
coffee break.

------
michaelochurch
With top talent, you never really _employ_ it. You just _sponsor_ it. If you
fail to recognize this, people become demotivated and that talent is either
meaningless, or turned against you.

The problem is that employers, and almost all of them are this way, are do
damn short-sighted. They'll pinch pennies on benefits, lay people off for the
slightest reason or no reason, and burn hours of time on psychotic, all-
consuming performance review systems, while missing the fucking point, which
is: _the real existential risk is when innovation stops_. None of that other
shit really matters.

An employee "stealing an idea", except in spy work, is a minor insult at
worst. As far as I'm concerned, it's the responsibility of the company to
provide conditions that are good enough (e.g. job stability, resources) that
people would rather stay than "steal" their ideas off to elsewhere. If they
can't or don't, then I have no sympathy.

The problem is that professional management culture rewards the mindless,
minuscule cost-cutting that is often just externalizing costs to the future.
That's where we get companies that put these onerous clauses in place, failing
to realize that their pulling that kind of shit is _killing_ the energy they'd
need if they wanted true innovation.

If a company wants to excel-- instead of simply being a scam through which
management robs investors (of their money) and employees (of their time and
careers)-- it needs to give its people support, autonomy, and trust. Yes, a
few people will "steal" from the company (by which I mean abusing that
autonomy) but most won't have that inclination in the slightest, and more
money will be made on the latter (by orders of magnitude) than is lost on the
former.

~~~
mempko
Implying of course that the "other" talent, you know, not the top kind, you
can employ and own all you want?

~~~
michaelochurch
Most people (85%) don't mind subordinate roles as long as they're generally
treated decently. They don't have ambitious career goals or strong opinions on
what they should be doing with their time.

I'm not saying that such people should be "owned". That's pretty
reprehensible. I'm saying that they don't require an amount of autonomy
incompatible with the standard employment context.

~~~
mempko
Wow, that is insulting to pretty much every working person. Seriously, fuck
you and your bigotry.

------
kjs3
I really hate blanket IP restrictions in employee agreements, and take pains
to get folks to carve out areas that we don't have rights to. But having had
more than one employee who was really only skating by, only to find they were
spending more than half of their work hours on their side idea, which was
pretty much in competition with part of our offering, I can understand the
attraction of these clauses.

Ethics is a two way street. I shouldn't own every thought that comes into your
head as an employee, but if you're dickish enough to think "pay me while I
build a business at your expense and on your time" is a business plan, then I
don't have a problem making that attitude painful.

------
strathmeyer
"You’ve reached your limit of 10 complimentary articles this month."

~~~
mrtbld
Try this:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20140414122508/http://mobile.nyti...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140414122508/http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/opinion/my-
ideas-my-bosss-property.html)

~~~
vacri
Often you can get around these limits by opening a 'private/incognito window'
in your browser. In FF, you can right-click the link and 'open in new private
window', and I imagine similar in Chrome.

