Ask HN: Can you get away with not working?

It's not being lazy, it's being paid for A and working on B, totally different thing.

If I hire a freelancer to work on project A and charges me X$/h, but instead work on project B and still charge me for that time, it's illegal. Of course, illegal is a fuzzy term, it really depends of how the contract is crafted and, more importantly, how much one would be willing to take legal action against the freelancer (which will most likely turns out more expensive than just letting it go).

I'm no lawyer, but pretty sure it's not written in standard contracts "Employees can work on whatever he/she wants, get to keep all the IP of it, pending that employee doesn't get caught."

I empathize with your position very much, but I think you should reconsider your attitude of, "I don't enjoy my job (but who does)". I have worked on small teams building software that, even tho it's a job, we all really care about and learn together. I agree with those who suggested that you should find a new job OR quit and focus on your side-businesses full time.

Thinking more positively about the idea that a job can be fun will also work in your favour if your side businesses take off and you need to start hiring. You want to know how to spot and get-along with developers who actually care lest you end up with a team of people who will do to you what you are doing to your current employer.

if it is a healthy company they will figure you out and throw you away once it becomes convenient.

if it is a bad company, you might get away with that, but you will miss on a lot of learnigs, earnings and networking if you stay there.

in both cases, i believe you should make a change.

personally, i would be too compassionate to the company’s success, and too paranoid on improving my own job security and salary to ever think about doing what you do. i am not judging though.

No you're not the only person that's gone through this. If you work at a 9-5 and you're not doing this or focused on your friends / family / hobby or creative projects then maybe you're wasting the valuable little time you have on this earth. Big corporations exist precisely because they can afford the large inefficiencies that come from having a lot of people not really care much.

Now as far as quitting your job, that depends on how much savings you have, your historical ability to deal with extreme chaos, stress and uncertainty, and how much you realistically believe you can grow the business. Some business are great part time but difficult to scale.

Don't overthink it and just do what feels right. Remember that doing the wrong thing can end up being the right thing 10 years down the line.

If you've been working in California for California employers, you've probably seen non-competes that prevent working for a competitor concurrently with that employer. I believe those are enforceable.

What is often presented in other states is an agreement to not work for competitors that extends for maybe 6 months to 2 years after employment; that's not generally enforceable in California, except with some specific exceptions, generally around when a business owner sells their business.

This has been the case for many years, through judicial review as well as legislation.