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Comment by throwaway-1209 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you in principle, but I've seen shit you wouldn't believe when there's a few million dollars at stake: otherwise fine, ethical, upstanding human beings can turn into the worst weasels you can imagine if you don't hold the sword of legal retribution over their heads to assure their good faith. You won't quite understand that until you actually work on something you have a vested interest in succeeding, as in, a substantial financial stake, not some bullshit koolaid they feed you as you're slaving away on an irrelevant product #24554 at a Megacorp Inc.

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Are they being properly compensated for their time? By that, I mean is the employee being directly compensated for all of the non-work hours the company is claiming ownership of ideas over?

Otherwise, if its a classic "Here is a salary and package, we own all your relevant ideas from here on" deal, I'd say that is highly unethical behavior on the company's part, and is a case of wage theft.

Should the employee be barred from moonlighting too? Not unless the company is willing to pay for said time.

If you don't like compensation the door is open, you can leave. Look, I agree with you in principle, but I'm now a large shareholder in a business, so I see the other side of the argument too. The goal isn't really to stop anyone from pursuing something unrelated, an idea that's mostly theirs. The goal is to avoid Levandovsky-style backstabbing. Especially for small companies, this can be fatal.

So you agree with me in principle, but when it comes to action you feel we should fuck over the worker in the name of profit?

To quote Martin Luther King Jr.:

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom;"

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

It's the same bootlicking mentality behind both of these problems.

Pretty much, I'd much rather talk with a MAGA than a liberal, despite the similarity in views I may share with said liberal.

The former I can often have a sensical conversation with and perhaps change their mind on some issues, the latter feeling an outright opposition to taking action or altering their views.

It's fuck or get fucked. I'd rather not get fucked, same as you. It's just that now I'm on the other end.

Yeah but in this fucked up battle, you are the bad guy and the employee is not.

The problem is the employee can't really leave, because everyone else users a similar contact. But what exactly is the other side of the argument? The one that says "we don't really want to stop you from pursuing something unrelated, but we are going to make you sign it over to us anyways "

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