Ask HN: Working on startup on work issued computer

[hbhakhra]

I am working on a bootstrapped startup on my nights and weekends while maintaining my big corp job. The only computer I have is my work laptop, so I have been using that for everything. Could I run into issues if I get a startup to the point of success and profits and then quit my job?

FYI: I am in CA and my startup is in no way related to what I work on at my day job.

[patio11]

Do. Not. Do. This.

For elaboration, here's your risk/reward calculation. Reward: you save N days worth of your present salary which you should spend on a cheapo laptop. Risk: you are planting an unrecoverable flaw deep in the heart of your company. It only matters if your startup does well, but if it does, it suddenly matters a lot. If you are in talks for an acquisition or funding round five years from now and this topic comes up in due diligence, your company is over. It does not matter whether you'd win the legal case -- and you wouldn't -- because there will not even be a legal case. The risk-averse counterparty you'll then be dealing with will nope-nope-NOPE out of that transaction and do business with someone who is capable of minimal levels of professionalism.

Also, while I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings: given that there is no way to untaint the project you are presently working on, I think you're probably better off rm -rf'ing N weeks of work and starting over rather than taking the somewhat accelerated timeframe on a project which has an unfixable timebomb embedded in it.

[barry-cotter → patio11]

As Patrick said you should delete absolutely everything you have written so far, and ideally all evidence that you were working on anything.

If you do a reimplementation it will go much, much faster because you now know what you're doing.

Get a second hand laptop or a Chromebook or something. If you're able to get a job programming you should be able to afford something.

[greenyoda]

I'm not familiar with CA law, so I can't comment on whether your employer could lay claim to the intellectual property you create on their hardware. You can probably find that information on the web.

However, there's another obvious risk: if your employer fires you for any reason, they'll demand your laptop back immediately, and you may not get the chance to retrieve anything that's on it (e.g., you may be immediately escorted from the building by security). Anything that's stored on the laptop may fall into your employer's hands at that point.

Also, use of company equipment for personal use may violate your company's own policies, and may give them grounds for firing you. You said you work for a "big corp" - they frequently have rules like that in their employee handbook.

Do yourself a favor and get your own machine to do your personal stuff on.

[jeffbush]

Joel Spolsky gives a good summary here:

http://www.brightjourney.com/q/working-company-intellectual-...

The key phrase seems to be this one: "These state legislatures usually passed laws that said something like this: Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not related to your employer's line of work is yours, even if the contract you signed says otherwise." (emphasis mine)

This suggests doing external work on company equipment might be a bad idea.

[otterley]

I am an attorney, but this is not legal advice. Seek licensed counsel in your jurisdiction.

The law basically says that your employer can claim ownership over any work product you make while in their employ (i.e. in the workplace) or using their equipment. So cease immediately if you don't want to potentially forfeit your creation, and use solely your own equipment, outside the usual workplace, to develop it.

[gjvc]

Rule #1 -- don't be a cheapskate on things which matter.

[brudgers → gjvc]

Rule #0: Spend the minimum necessary amount of money.

In this case a used $100-$300 machine is probably the minimum necessary expenditure [as opposed to a new MacBook Pro or it's equivalent].

Implementing a sound backup strategy is more important than any gain in reliability between new and used hardware.

[ddingus]

Get a computer. Your own computer. This just isn't a lot of money.

A builder needs tools. Get your own tools, build your own stuff. Have no worries. Simple as that.

If anything, owning no other machine does beg the question of how you got it all kicked off, doesn't it?

[icu]

Like others I will say don't do this, however if it's the only PC you have access then why don't you boot up a live Linux DVD or USB distro and do your work in that and save to the cloud?

[loumf → icu]

That does nothing to mitigate the risk. It's not just the hard drive that matters -- it's the equipment, which includes the entire PC.

[aceperry]

Everyone here is pretty much saying, get your own laptop. I'm going to add my voice that sentiment. On practical grounds, you don't want to give your employer any reason to put a checkmark about you on the negative ledger. Even if a lot of people there do it as well, you just want to avoid negative marks, especially at a large corp. On another level, it just feels more like your own work and product when done completely with your own resources. Good luck with the startup.

[bonobo3000]

Maybe there are legal implications or company policies, but seriously, how would your employer ever even find out you were using that laptop? Just don't go around advertising it if you do use it, backup your data and wipe it before you return it, you'll be fine.

Of course it might be nicer to have your own laptop that is setup just right for what you're building, but if money is scarce then i would just use the work laptop and keep quiet about it.

[cmdkeen → bonobo3000]

And if it goes well and the poster is ever asked, under penalty of perjury, what would you advise then?

The cost of a new laptop is fixed and small. The cost of a successful startup being destroyed is potentially massive.

[firegrind]

Invest in a bottom tier machine. Apart from the healthy separation, it will teach you to value both computation and financial resources.

It's totally possible to code Erlang on a low-end netbook.

The cheap laptop I wrote early self-employed code on was under 20% the price of a cheap Mac and so badly made it was flexible.

The work I produced on it paid for the eventual upgrade.

[cweagans]

It's not worth the risk. Go out and spend a couple hundred bucks on a Chromebook or something. If you need more computing muscle, use vim on an EC2 instance or something.

I agree with other commenters saying you should dump your current codebase and reimplement from scratch.

[dwarman]

also: things can get really ugly if your corp. decides to throw post-911 terrorism charges at you. I know of several instances where just using work machine for personal email got that treatment so the corp could get out of paying contract fees.

[alok-g]

>> FYI: I am in CA and my startup is in no way related to what I work on at my day job.

Note: I am not a lawyer.

"Related to" is a very loosely-defined term. Don't be so sure that your startup is not related to your work at your day job.

[hbhakhra]

Thanks for all the replies. I will get a personal computer ASAP.

It wasn't that I couldn't afford it, but its just more convenient to have everything on one computer. Yes, looks dumb now looking back at it...

[slickwilli]

Our professors in my EGR100 class warned us about this, even using the school's computers to work on a non-school related project could give the school possible IP claims.

[lazylizard]

if its about 'a computer'..it can be as low as us$100..whats the problem? http://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-win-8.1.html?initiativ...

[bobfirestone]

Depends on what you signed when you started your job. Standard I am not a lawyer disclaimer goes here.

Seriously computers are cheap go buy one.

[retali8]

why the hell would anyone do this, or even think about doing this?

if you're doing it for convenience, it ain't worth the jail time.

if you're doing it because your work computer has expensive development software, you're breaking ethics and legal agreements, then you'd deserve the jail time.

if you're doing it for any other reason ,DONT.

[MichaelCrawford]

If you don't have the cash for a computer, you can get one at very little cost, maybe even for free from an electronics recycler. Branham High School in San Jose operates one as a student club; I purchase five decent quality PCs for fifty bucks total.