Hacker News Reader

Comment by rvnx | Hacker News Reader

It can be unethical without being illegal.

When I work for a company, I don't spin-off that company using corporate knowledge, I just find something else to do (and that's probably why I'm not rich :D), but it's the most elegant thing to do.

Zuckerberg is a famous example of such behaviour.

I think this Radon is talented too (good tech + doesn't wait for others to give permission + very interesting ideas), and what he did is probably okay-ish, a bit borderline but still on the ok-side (he seems more like a fan of Repl.it than anything).

I just wouldn't go til the point where I complain about it publicly.

View on HN

Companies want you hire you and for you to bring your existing knowledge, skills, and understanding to build a product.

Then they want you to not use the knowledge, skills, and understanding to build a product when you aren't working for them.

This is hypocritical and self-contradictory. They require you to do the very thing they don't want you to do, just as long as it's in their favor.

Everything is subtle warfare. Act accordingly.

Employers do what they think they can get away with to extract maximum value from you. If you are smart, you will do what you think you can get away with to extract maximum value from your employer, too. Playing fair when the other side doesn't is just forfeiting.

> don't spin-off that company using corporate knowledge

That is a very common way to do a spin off. Usually it involves some patents or non public knowledge and you make an agreement with the original company for it. But when it is all open there is nothing, legal or moral (in my opinion), from stopping you from making your own spinoff. Companies don't care about you, you shouldn't care about them.

> don't spin-off that company using corporate knowledge,

If everyone followed this rule there would be no Fairchild and no Intel.

There'd be nothing. A lot of competitors have come about from people starting companies to compete in the same field. All of the modern gaming industry is basically based on disenfranchised game developers starting their own companies.

I don't understand at all why this would be unethical. Maybe I'm working for a company making a product I have expertise for and I'm passionate about, but they're making decisions that I feel make it worse for users unnecessarily. I leave and start my own competing product to do it my own way that I consider to be the better way. This isn't unethical. This is the nature of all competition everywhere going back as far as anybody can remember. I've stolen nothing at all, so I'm not sure on what basis it would be unethical.

And if it's a topic or industry I have expertise and knowledge of, why would I throw that all away just because I worked for a company where I used that expertise and knowledge? That's basically implying that we're all "ethically" subject to non-competes for the rest of our lives after working for a company making a particular kind of product.

That's clearly and absolutely "inelegant", to use your phrasing.

It's neither illegal nor unethical to open a bake shop after working for a bake shop, or even a single type of cookie shop, as long as it's not a solen private recipe.

If the intern was under a no-compete, or stole any IP, this would be known and there would be nothing to talk about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com