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

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291–300 of 442 posts

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

#291
post #53

Kind of tangential, but why is there a concurring opinion here? It seems like it doesn't argue things particularly differently from the majority opinion, and it reaches all the same conclusions for (as far as I can tell) all the same reasons. I assume that my non-lawyer eyes are missing something, so I'm curious what it is.

It came to the same conclusion but had a different rationale or might have disagreed with some aspects of the majority opinion. Or perhaps the judge wanted to add something that wasn’t included.

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

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those non competes cannot be enforced under EU law of free movement of labour.

Exactly. If I read my contract carefully I'm sure it has clauses saying I can't compete for N months, and that everyting I create on weekends no matter how unrelated (A hobby piece of software, a novel, a pop song...) is immediately the IP of my employer no matter which equipment I use or if anyone asked me to create it. All of that is obviously non-enforcable nonsense.

Hmm I also have that in my Dutch contract. I really don't like the way my current employer handles their market and I'm eager to do it right myself (I feel that with the right technologies I could really build something nice myself.) This part of my contract has kept me from it (the "we own what you make at any time of the day"-clause). I do understand the clause though, it's just to easy to claim you made up some valuable IP outside of office hours. Maybe I should keep a log regarding the actual dev work...

With respect to the non-compete clause, it says in my contract that they can keep me from going to a competitor for a year, but they'll pay me for that year. I wonder if they'd ever enforce this.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly correct. I tried to explain this to a public official from an east cost town who was flying back from the Bay Area trying to "learn the secrets" of creating an innovation hub. When I explained this situation (non-competes are illegal, stuff you do at home is yours) to him he literally said "That's crazy! Why would anyone hire anyone if they knew they could walk out the door to a competitor, or even to start a…

IMHO there is more to SV than just that. Case in point, in Germany non-competes are basically non-enforceable, patentble inventions have to be offered to your current employer so. But only if they are directly linked to your current job, not which equipment yu are using. And if it is not directly linked to your current job, it's all yours. And still, we don't have anything near to SV over here.

> And still, we don't have anything near to SV over here.

You don’t? I mean, Germany is a technology powerhouse, with arguably the best engineering sector on the planet. It just has a different set of technology products than Silicon Valley.

If I were a public policy leader interested in building a more durable, equitable economy for my citizens I would gladly choose the German model.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Italy is a really interesting case for me as the birthplace of the renaissance. What happened there? And when? For an interesting deep dive into the role of Government in innovation there is a report from Price-Waterhouse Cooper[1] that I found interesting if a bit jargon laden :-). But it definitely calls out for a public/private partnership to be successful. I think governmental and banking stability has hurt Italy…

Corruption has to have an effect. In SV it's common to shout about the success of your business. It would probably be foolish to do the same in Italy.

likely, but I didn't see 'lack of corruption' in the parent post sv pillars, which is the whole point of the counterargument.

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

#295
post #287
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: Of course my whole calculation was wrong. Well, it first seemed low to me as well. But 0.01% of one million is ten thousand, which doesn't sound that bad. One million also seems low for a successful company. The same offer would give you ten billion at apple. Disclaimer: I am not good at math and I don't understand stocks, equity etc. So maybe I am completely wrong.

> But 0.01% of one million is ten thousand 1,000,000 USD * (0.01 / 100) = 100 USD, not 10,000 USD. The company would have to be worth 100M USD for 0.01% to be worth 10,000 USD. > Disclaimer: I am not good at math [...] Indeed ;-) But don't worry, many a great engineer has made worse mistakes when it comes to shifting the decimal point.

Ah damn, you see, that's how incapable I am with maths :D I just calculated one million * 0.01 and thought that'll be it. Thanks for correcting me, seems like 0.01 isn't that much after all.

Fortunately my job does not require math skills, so at least I am no danger to society :D

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

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you’re not going to act on an author’s central point, don’t try do any of the other parts (they’ll probably actually be harmful). If you’re not going to copy the central parts of something successful, don’t bother copying the other stuff. > The recipe for success of Silicon Valley is pretty straightforward. It has great colleges, great weather, and weak noncompetes. There are a couple of interesting things about…

Southern France has wonderful weather and the Mediterranean Sea. The EU should start a special economic zone for startups there (a split of later taxes going into the EU budget).

Currently in Paris as everything is centralized there but indeed, if the opportunity ever presented itself I would move to Nice in a heartbeat, the rest of the bigger cities (Marseilles, Montpellier) suffer a bad reputation though...

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

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My numbers were out of date. Germany has a higher GDP per capita than South Carolina, Alabama, Idaho, West Virginia, Arkansas and Mississippi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany

Interesting. Why does Washington DC have almost triple the gdp/capita then California? What do they do that California don’t?

DC has higher GDP per capita than California for the same reason NYC would have higher GDP per capita than NY state, or San Francisco than all of California. Cities are more economically productive than areas that also have lots of low value added activities like agriculture, mining or forestry.

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

#298
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Non competes have been tested in indian courts and thrown out. Are you from India? People here are afraid to approach the police station even for small issues, let alone take on billion dollar firms and fight expensive cases for years. Even winning means losing in a context like this. People even settle traffic violation tickets with bribes, and you are talking about taking on billion dollar companies. Also no one…

this is a civil case. this is not criminal. there is no police. the onus is on the company to go to court and do this. And this gets rejected. because indian courts have rejected non-competes as a matter of policy. I would suggest you recheck the ground reality. And yes i do run a company in India.

>>this is a civil case. this is not criminal. there is no police.

That is in theory. In reality people in power have more than sufficient means to intimidate you and bring you trouble.

>>the onus is on the company to go to court and do this. And this gets rejected. because indian courts have rejected non-competes as a matter of policy.

That is if you decide to stay put despite all this for years and fight it out. Also note I myself pointed out most companies won't bother with this. Because they often have bigger fish to fry.

>>I would suggest you recheck the ground reality.

Would give you the same advice. In fact just try walking into the city civil court in Bangalore and see for yourself how it works there. Many times the advocate has to plan the exact statements to speak, write them down on paper and quickly spit them out in front of the Judge, because there is no time. The Judge himself is generally swamped and has to listen to dozens of cooked property litigation cases everyday. Your case will go sandwiched some where in between, and it will keep accumulating dates and legal fees until you give up. Long before that your will power will run out.

If you are an individual wanting to fight a company that's taking you to court for non-compete stuff the company lawyer will show up do the routine. You have to take leave from your job and deal with all these court hassles. Might as well for your own sanity give up.

Look man I get it, you are trying to sell India in a predominantly US forum. But seriously, none of what you are saying works. In fact not even remotely close.

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

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also German law doesn't make easy allowances for employee ownership / stock options. There's a hack to get around this where you write a contract for a percentage of the eventual exit, but this limits what sort of exits are possible. European laws, regulations, and investor culture are all setup in ways that hurt startups.

> Also German law doesn't make easy allowances for employee ownership / stock options. Airbnb gave me plenty of RSUs while I worked in Berlin. No problem. The Berlin startups with their shit together also know how to use UK (now Irish) Limited companies, which have no issues with offering options to employees.

If you sold them, what was the taxes to pay?

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reminds me of this tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/zackkanter/status/130493861651941... The cognitive dissonance humans are capable of is amazing. To actually say “We would never allow that in our town.” in the pejorative while flying back from a trip specifically meant to learn how to be like another town . If you’re not going to act on an author’s central point, don’t try to do any of the other parts…

Italy literally invented universities, gets comparable climate and unpaid non competes are not enforceable. no silicon valley equivalent in sight tho so I strongly suspect the whole thread so far it's projection and wishful thinking.

In Italy you cannot fire anyone. Like a marriage. And taxes on wages are the highest in Europe. This is why they cannot easily compete globally.
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