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Comment by trhway | Hacker News Reader

the affidavit (http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/file/763991/download) is basically a boring and bad-divorce-ugly saga how a Director (not "employee") lost the office battle and was stupid/careless enough to mention having some Tableau analytics (the company's proprietary info by definition) downloaded and in his possession in the course of the severance discussion recorded by FBI. I don't think he would be that careless if the info was really valuable and he intended to profit from it, ie. if he really "stole" it and valued it. It sounds pretty plausible that he used it only to understand the value of his options. Making enemies and giving them the opening to bring in FBI seems to be his main sin here. Now they also incriminate him wiping out his laptop before returning. I wonder has anybody here returned company laptops (upon leaving or upgrade) without nuking it? I mean i do access my bank and other accounts from the laptop ...

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This article http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-08-26-another-day... refers to Zeng attempting to use the info to negotiate better severance, which if true is basically blackmail. The article also links to other (possibly unrelated) post on MachineZone's recent clash (heh) with Kabam.

Generally a really really bad way to negotiate severance. Not as bad as changing all the passwords on the company routers and then holding them hostage but pretty sad.

I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds like extortion to me. As in, "It would be awful if your business caught fire and burnt to the ground after I left the company...."

Theft of trade secrets is severe, but I'm always dissatisfied to see criminal charges for hurting someone's business model. In this case, there is more despicable behavior that is not being explicitly prosecuted.

I don't argue here - allowing any connection, implicit or explicit, between return of proprietary stuff and severance immediately creates impression of extortion and puts the one into very vulnerable position, and this is why doing it, even unintentionally, is a stupidity or carelesness at best.

I read the transcript and wow this brings back bad memories of a former boss.

edited by me for clarity:

   17 June: Zeng proposes to Orsini that Zeng make a new team.  Orsini says no.
   
   2 July: Zeng chats Orsini, "[...] just to confirm I will start [at new team]
   on August 1st".  Orsini tells Zeng there is no job requisition [at new team]
   
   7 July: Zeng's supervisor tells team that Machine Zone wants to limit # of
   employees for the year.  Zeng messages Orsini and asks if that will affect his
   new position.  Orsini says they will not be creating a new position.

   next day: Zeng goes to HR and says he thought there was an agreement with
   Orsini for a new position.

even after it is finally made clear to Zeng that there is no new position / new team for him, he then wanted his options to vest early!

I worked with a manager like this. He just willfully ignored you telling him answers he didn't want to hear or didn't like. Until I finally quit, it was the worst 7 months of my career. Zeng seems to be the same.

You're missing some important points:

- He is confirmed to have accessed a whole bunch of stuff he had no business accessing leading up to being let go.

- He wiped his laptop and moved sensitive company data BACK to the laptop from an external device after having wiped it

Many people wipe their laptops.. most people don't try to make it look like they didn't wipe their laptops, and when they're called out try to use the external drives as leverage for a better severance package.

The degree to what he was up to is definitely up for debate, but no doubt in my mind this dude fucked up several times.

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