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Comment by dineshp2 | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how this show gives a glimpse of what life in Silicon Valley as a founder is like.

Obviously it's by no means an accurate representation but it is in some ways a source of inspiration for people working on their startups.

In the show Hooli claims ownership of the underlying IP since Richard worked on Pied Piper during Hooli time and ran some tests on Hooli hardware. How likely is such a scenario to actually occur? I know it's technically possible, but I am not aware of any such high profile case.

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As a counterpoint to the Silicon Valley show accuracy, I recently marathoned Betas, which is an Amazon original series which attempted to add comedy to Silicon Valley culture (and actually predates the HBO show). The problem is that it played the culture completely straight.

The issues with the show can be summed up in one scene: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/682261750222209024

Wait I don't understand, how is that playing it straight? Is it supposed to be accurate?

The scene I linked to is done completely unironically.

just wow. it is played unironically, but so self-unaware that it then becomes funny, which must be enjoyed in an ironic manner. so:

```

  def change_tone tone
    tone = ironic
    change_tone tone
  end

```

#change_tone :unironic

#SystemStackError

> Obviously it's by no means an accurate representation

No, because the reality is even crazier than the show.

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That's a little different; Hooli owns the IP because it was developed using Hooli resources. I am presuming the University wasn't claiming license to the professor's pool cleaning business, but rather prohibiting his use of their equipment for other enterprise.

I don't know about specific legal cases, but that kind of rule in employment agreements is basically de rigueur, and there's a big body of established law around it. It's potentially an issue for any new company/invention started by an employee, and for University students.

Even university students? But most of the great startups were started by university students, so why wasn't there any issue about it so far?

In some cases, the student knows the legal issues and drops out first to avoid the Uni claiming IP ownership.

Some quick research suggests that funding may play a key role, particularly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act . So perhaps the IP claims are less important if the student is developing things on their own time, on their own dime.