Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
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Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#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 new job will inevitably lead to reliance on the former employer’s trade secrets].)"
Which is why Silicon Valley is in California, and why attempts to create a startup culture elsewhere have mostly failed.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#3"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
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#4Sounds 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 great working environment to begin with as the team was happy to jump ship at the first notice.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#5D.C., could you explain what part of this judgment you disagree with? Employees should have the right to switch companies and leaving a company shouldn’t bar employment in your field.
Hooked is relying on misrepresentation and vague notions of trade secretes — If there were actual concrete IP theft (or even something like customer lists or proprietary technology) wouldn’t their lawsuit have focused on that?
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#6"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…
It's funny as workers get caught up in notions of 'individual freedom', which they see as a benefit, but don't realize that systematically what this favours is simply power.
A company with 100x the resources of another, never needs to worry about IP or innovating, because it just plucks off other people's work, integrates into it's own machine and receives the market surpluses, risk free.
So yes - by getting tons of young people to drink the koolaid 'work hard for startups' knowing the surpluses, if any, will largely be concentrated in the hands of literally 5-10 behemoths, the Valley has played a neat trick.
IP rules favour the little guy: it's how they can keep their innovation by being taken from much larger companies. IP filed by large corps is often protective in nature, so as to protect themselves from trolls and obvious copy-cats.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#7"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…
It's funny as workers get caught up in notions of 'individual freedom', which they see as a benefit, but don't realize that systematically what this favours is simply power. A company with 100x the resources of another, never needs to worry about IP or innovating, because it just plucks off other people's work, integrates into it's own machine and receives the market surpluses, risk free. So yes - by getting tons of…
You're confusing, perhaps deliberately, employee mobility rights in California with company IP.
Thus your post makes no sense, in the English language at least.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#8The idea that a company felt entitled to sell its engineers is preposterous.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#9Two things, really: if you turn down an acquisition that you feel your employees supported, you don’t get to do the “surprised pikachu face” when you turn it down and they go work there anyway. Secondly, it’s presented as if these engineers exfiltrated special knowledge with them... isn’t it fair to also give them the benefit of the doubt in that the same employees may have crucially developed the software themselves before leaving?
In either case I can’t see how this simply doesn’t point at mismanagement by Hooked. From any angle, they created an environment that made these guys think “my time will be better spent at Apple”.
Re: Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key engineers; NP, says court [pdf]
#10"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…
It's funny as workers get caught up in notions of 'individual freedom', which they see as a benefit, but don't realize that systematically what this favours is simply power. A company with 100x the resources of another, never needs to worry about IP or innovating, because it just plucks off other people's work, integrates into it's own machine and receives the market surpluses, risk free. So yes - by getting tons of…
> IP rules favour the little guy
This is one of the most absurd and backwards claims I've seen on this site. Large companies are members of patent pools that prevent them from being sued by other members, whereas small companies without a large IP portfolio can't do anything without inadvertently violating someone's patent.