Since it's inevitably brought up every time this topic arises:<p>This is one of the reasons why California is still such a popular place to do business because the law explicitly nullifies those provisions in contracts.<p>See California Labor Code Sec. 2870<p><a href="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=02001-03000&file=2870-2872" rel="nofollow">http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr...</a>
I wait until I have an offer, then I ask to see the company's non-compete. Then, if the document says I can't contribute to other projects, I tell them I contribute to a number of open-source and other projects, and I need anything done on my own time to belong to me. I've done this two or three times, and have always gotten the agreement to be amended.<p>Wait until you have an offer in hand. That is your moment of greatest leverage, when they are most invested in having you on board.
> But for the duration of your employment, all your ideas belong to them.<p>Only in certain states, and I only if you sign such a contract. Did the author actually read his contract and say: "Please remove this part"?<p>I know California and Washington both have state laws limiting what companies can do in terms of taking ownership of your "outside" work.
I get the angst, and share it, on the other side of the table is a company paying you for your "full time" employment, they want to believe they have paid for all your time.<p>So the angst arises when you aren't really giving them all your time, you are keeping some for yourself to do things that are of interest to you and not in your employer's interest[1].<p>That is why they want you make a choice, either commit or don't, all in, or not. If you want to parcel out your time, then contracting is a much better way to do that, neither side feels like they are being taken advantage of.<p>Of course there are IP issues, and one which I hope will someday be rationalized by a better IP policy and framework[2] but contracting helps there too. You take ownership of your own "overhead" (benefits, vacation plans, etc) and then you sell the time you have to work on things either to someone else for direct payment, or to yourself as an investment in a future revenue stream.<p>[1] They would argue that if you have time to work on that you could have used that time to work further on your project they assigned you. Vacation and leisure, keeps you balanced so is in the employers interest.<p>[2] And realize that currently 'time to exhausting all the hydrogen fuel in the Sun' is looking like it will happen first.
I plan to leave my job in a few months because I want to work on an open source project unrelated to my job but possibly subject to the "land grab" IP contract I signed as other divisions in the company work on software in that genre. I live in California, but even if the provision is unenforceable I don't have the resources to fight a megacorp and I want to make a clean break. (This also isn't the only reason I'm leaving.)<p>Looking for a new job is tricky. Being able to work on this and other open source projects is a non-negotiable requirement for me. Similarly, I want to work fewer hours and would be satisfied accepting proportionately lower compensation. How do I make those conditions clear and avoid wasting everyone's time?<p>I have a very strong open source resume and finding a ordinary job is no problem. You want me on your team.<p>I'm tempted to just quit outright then start the job search by putting out a full resume along with my conditions. Is that wise?
The truth of this post strongly depends on both where you live, and who you work for.<p>If you live in New York, what this post says is absolutely true. Anything you do, on your own time, on your own equipment, belongs to your employer. And it sucks. I believe that this is a hidden drag on startups there. And it is one of the reasons why I do not want to live in New York any more.<p>If you live in California, this post is mostly wrong on IP ownership. The exception is that if you're doing something that relates to your employer's business, then you've got a problem. Even if you didn't know it related. Which is a problem if your employer has a lot of irons in a lot of fires like Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and so on do. However it isn't a problem if you work for a small company.
Also, if a company does threaten and/or actually sue a former employee (or worse, make statements like "If we're wrong, we'll win" [1]), they're going to permanently be on a lot of potential employees' shit list.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/smule-ceo-shred-video-lawsuit-2015-9" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/smule-ceo-shred-video-lawsuit...</a>
If you sign a contract that makes all your ideas the property of the company you work for, that is a problem. But I suggest pushing back on that contract - ask them to take out those clauses. If they say no, you then get to decide if it is a deal-breaker for you or not. But I suspect most of the time, they will work with you.
This model works perfectly fine in higher education, as does the idea that if you treat employees as people to be invested in and cut some slack when their life doesn't align perfectly with your plans, they reward you with creativity, energy, and loyalty. I like Elon Musk and the work that he does, but chewing out an employee for skipping out on work to witness their child's birth is more than enough reason to never work for a person like that.
I thought that the way you solve this in the states is by setting up an LLC and copyrighting under your LLC all of the code you write during hours you are not working for the other company. Doesn't that provide adequate additional protection? The strict IP agreements I've signed usually exclude work done for other companies.
Hear hear!<p>I'm currently trying to fix this culture at my current startup, and frankly it's rolling a boulder uphill. I'm not going to be here much longer, I don't think.<p>Folks, don't don't <i>don't</i> sign these contracts if you actually care--they won't be easy to fix later.
When I had a startup, I put a "We own your brain" clause in the employment agreement. However, I also called it to the attention of everybody I hired, and encouraged them to carve out any exception they wanted. Every hire except a couple of pure secretary/office manager types had a carve-out.<p>That said, I suspect that that's not a common way of doing things. About 30 years ago, I came up with it for a friend who was joining McKinsey, but had published a book based on her PhD thesis. They claimed to have never gotten that request before. But they also didn't object to granting it.
Employers are, by default, going to look out for themselves.<p>I'd argue that the onus is on the developer to understand and fight for better contracts. If more developers were taking these matters seriously then companies would have to respond. However, I doubt they'll be making the first move.<p>In the meantime nothing stops you from finding jobs that better suit your needs. "No thanks" is an acceptable answer to an employment opportunity.