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Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#151

Post by icedchai »

agentofoblivion wrote: post #145

I don’t think many of these comments are realistic. I’m truth, these clauses are likely defensive, particularly for tech companies. There is an almost 100% chance that if you started a company and left your job, your company will not register your coming or going in the slightest. If you’re some famous person that ends up starting some billion dollar company, and it was in an area highly relevant to your job, you mig…

Yes. This, 100%. I would like to just add this one thing which may be obvious: don't draw attention to yourself, don't tell any coworkers about whatever you're doing on the side.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#152

Post by 0x8BADF00D »

staticassertion wrote: post #108
teekert wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, if your job is to regularly create IP, it becomes difficult to prove what you came up with at home vs at work. And really it doesn't matter because you are usually paid a handsome sum for your inventiveness. I can understand such clauses as I change my risky situation of not coming up with anything of value and not having money for a steady wage but no chance at extreme richness. I am always free to stop working…

I don't think the vast majority of programmers are paid to generate tons of IP. More importantly, we're almost always only paid to generate IP in a single domain. So if I go home and generate IP for a totally different domain, there's no reason why my employer should have any claim to it. But many companies will have it in your contract that they own it, regardless of relevance to the company.

You can put anything in a contract or legal document. Doesn’t mean that it’s enforceable or can be upheld in a court of law.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#153

Post by icedchai »

stingraycharles wrote: post #34
archi42 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, okay. I honestly didn't believe that was legally possible - and thanks for pointing out that I'm probably wrong. I checked the wording of my contract, and regarding "my employer has ownership of my work" it explicitly says "im Rahmen dieses Arbeitsverhältnisses" -> "as part of this employment relationship". So I suppose I'm safe (there is a clause that I have to ask for permission to do side jobs; but I know com…

Right, and it also depends upon your role (I was in a leadership position). Regardless, the law is intentionally vague (“could be related to your work” leaves room for interpretation), and it’s better to get explicit permission.

I'd say it's always better to ask forgiveness. They probably won't find out anyway, so why waste everyone's time (especially your own.) You'll spend more time writing useless emails to HR / lawyers than working on your side project. The simplest thing is to just do your thing, keep it to yourself. In the very unlikely event someone brings it up, you just play dumb. (Your Tetris clone isn't infringing on the company anyway.)

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#154

Post by navigatesol »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #119
ilaksh wrote: post #72

The clauses I have seen attempt to claim all intellectual work regardless of when it was done or whether it was related to the job. To me, this is an indication that we truly have not progressed beyond wage slavery. I believe such clauses should be illegal. I think one thing we might be able to do is to create a list of companies that have blanket clauses like this and then some people (not most) will have the luxury…

I'm kind of mind-blown reading this thread. Right now I'm working on a product of my own, and I'm currently employed. The product has absolutely-zero-nada-nothing to do with what my company does, I do it on my own time, with my own money, with my own machine. Are you saying that I still may not be legally in the clear? If so, that is incredibly insane, and I can't believe clauses like that actually exist. Not sure ho…

>Are you saying that I still may not be legally in the clear?

You're not necessarily guilty of anything per se, but if your company decides to sue you, they have that right.

It's standard practice to include this in employment contracts as protection, but it'll be up to the court to decide if what you worked on actually falls under the umbrella of your employer's IP. In practice, the company can't blanket tell you you can't work on anything, ever.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#155

Post by navigatesol »

freehunter wrote: post #134
Kaotique wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that first advice a bit paranoid. What country are you from where it is normal that a company is logging and spying on its employers? I have a company laptop but there is no logging whatsoever. Outside office hours I use this laptop to do personal stuff all the time.

I've worked in information security my entire career, and let me tell you: we have the ability to monitor anything and everything, and it's often completely invisible to the end user. Read your employee handbook and there are likely places in there talking about monitoring on work-issued machines. It may be that your employer doesn't do that. You would be extremely in the minority. Even connecting to the employers ne…

>You would be extremely in the minority.

Rubbish. Most companies don't even have an IT department and are too busy trying to keep the business going and make payroll to be worried about malware or what their employees are Googling.

I agree with being cautious, but by the sounds of it you don't know what "most" businesses are like in the real world.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#156

Post by house9-2 »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #119
ilaksh wrote: post #72

The clauses I have seen attempt to claim all intellectual work regardless of when it was done or whether it was related to the job. To me, this is an indication that we truly have not progressed beyond wage slavery. I believe such clauses should be illegal. I think one thing we might be able to do is to create a list of companies that have blanket clauses like this and then some people (not most) will have the luxury…

I'm kind of mind-blown reading this thread. Right now I'm working on a product of my own, and I'm currently employed. The product has absolutely-zero-nada-nothing to do with what my company does, I do it on my own time, with my own money, with my own machine. Are you saying that I still may not be legally in the clear? If so, that is incredibly insane, and I can't believe clauses like that actually exist. Not sure ho…

If you are in California you should be fine; of course there is a good chance you aren't so good luck.

https://www.employmentrightscalifornia.com/can-my-california...

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#157

Post by ronsor »

nullwasamistake wrote: post #115
Kaotique wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your concern, but in this case, there is really nothing going on this laptop that I am not aware of. Company e-mail is archived somewhere in Google but I obviously don't use my company e-mail for personal use. I am a bit surprised that multiple people here are living in such a permanent state of paranoia.

Most companies in the US monitor everything. And you probably wouldn't know, things like intercepting DNS are not obvious from users end. Many monitoring tools hide themselves like malware.

If the owner didn't want it installed, it would be malware!

(but since the owner is the company....)

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#158

Post by mfrye0 »

From my experience, as I did exactly that..

- If you're looking for a new job, find one that has a good work life balance and where you will learn skills relevant to what you want to do. In my case, I was weak in dev ops, so I picked a job where I'd learn that.

- As far as the legal front, a company can't own 100% of your time. When you begin working on your own stuff, use a separate computer, and keep notes with dates. Basically you want to show evidence, in a worst case scenario, that you created this in your own time and not using company resources.

- Then don't tell anyone about what you're working on until after you leave your job. Once you leave, ideally everyone will think that everything you built is post-job.

- Once you leave your job, depending on what you built (if it's competitive with your past job) it's good to tell everyone about it. My early investors were my co-workers.

That's just stuff off the top of my head. Happy to provide more info if you want. And best of luck to you! Starting a company is a hell of an adventure.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#159

Post by simplecomplex »

This is just an excuse you tell yourself to not start a company. A cop-out. Nobody at your current employer is going to know or care you started a company.

Don’t listen to most of the comments here, they’ve been brainwashed into fear and subservience to their employer.

Re: Ask HN: How can I work towards building a company while employed?

#160

Post by simplecomplex »

cube00 wrote: post #104
lisperforlife wrote: post #11

Here is what I'd do. * Pick a tech stack and get really good at it. You can do it at your company's time and equipment as it is gaining knowledge. * Give yourself 6 months to blog and contribute to open source on your own laptop. Get something decent to get started. If you feel buying a Macbook Pro or a similar Dev laptop is a huge expense, look for options to rent it in the short term. Consistency is key, ensure tha…

Do not use your company's time or equipment, period. "Gaining knowledge" needs to be justified, if you start learning tech stacks not endorsed by your company on company equipment and time, you'll have a problem.

What problem? Who cares if you upset the company? Just get another job.
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