Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]

Post by konjin » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:03 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #27

konjin wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like something someone who has never been taken to court over IP rights would say. I have, and it cost us $10k to get told "you're screwed." by the lawyer that was suggested by friends as one of the better ones for startups.

Without IP laws, you would be even more screwed. By virtue of your existence, you would be there as little fish literally to be eaten by larger one's. For every time a large company trolls a smaller one, there are 100 times one company decides not to infringe on some other work. For example, I work with a hardware company that has patents. We freely send our products to larger competitors. Why? Because they know we h…

Post by yarg » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:04 PM UTC

batmaniam wrote: post #18

tallgiraffe wrote: post #4

Sounds like a few engineers found out that Apple was looking into their company and knowing Apple was interested they took a new gig, meanwhile the CEO got upset and decided to fire the last remaining defecting engineer, who out of goodness of heart actually declined Apple, but gratefully took the offer once he got fired. Although it probably hurts to have your team poached, it sounds like potentially it wasn't a gre…

We should rid of the term 'poaching'. There's no such thing. We're not animals, we are free to accept a better offer it comes along. The CEO should have counter offered with something more substantial, but he couldn't so the engineers went to greener pastures.

Post by boulos » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

tin7in wrote: post #30

boulos wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of theories. One of the main ones is that national policies around employee equity vary throughout Europe and are often severely disadvantageous (particularly Spain and Germany). Lots of European entrepreneurs are calling on policy makers to both normalize this within the EU, as well as making the policies competitive (e.g., [1]). Of course that statement misses some of the “why not ”. The tax treatmen…

> One of the main ones is that national policies around employee equity vary throughout Europe and are often severely disadvantageous (particularly Spain and Germany). Lots of European entrepreneurs are calling on policy makers to both normalize this within the EU, as well as making the policies competitive (e.g., [1]). I would also add that employee perception about the value of equity vs salary varies across countr…

Post by rossdavidh » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:07 PM UTC

Post by ChefboyOG » Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 11:09 PM UTC

emteycz wrote: post #3

Animats wrote: post #2

"That evidence does suggest the engineers drew on knowledge and skills they gained from Hooked to develop a product for their new employer––but California’s policy favoring free mobility for employees specifically allows that. (See Whyte v. Schlage Lock Co. (2002) 101Cal.App.4th 1443, 1464 [rejecting the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, under which a claim for trade secret misappropriation is stated if an employee’s…

I don't understand why there is no Silicon Valley in Europe then