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Comment by jomamaxx | Hacker News Reader

"Bullshit, that's what NDAs are for."

Totally false and completely naive.

Most knowledge and know-how is not explicit - they are often learned.

For example - suppose you worked at Nuance, and helped develop their new AI/Neural Network speech recognition system. Everything you know about Speech + AI you learned from them, in that language specific setting.

If you went to work on Google's new Speech Recognition, which is AI-based - it would basically be impossible not to pass on know how and relevant knowledge. The application-specific skills are basically IP.

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> For example - suppose you worked at Nuance, and helped develop their new AI/Neural Network speech recognition system. Everything you know about Speech + AI you learned from them, in that language specific setting.

And the knowledge and experience you got from your previous job before Nuance ? where does it come from ? why would the buck stop at Nuance ? or the former company ? or the company before it ? your point is ridiculous. The knowledge I acquire, if it doesn't involve a company's secret is my own and no company owns it. There is no such thing as intellectual slavery which you basically promote. If you don't pay me I owe nothing more than the respect of your patents and other corporate secrets and those are covered by NDA.

Actually, that's a very interesting question - your prior knowledge in a field, particularly if you've paid for your education, might become significantly more valuable if a non-compete is implemented. Valuable enough perhaps to refuse Nuance the right to use your work.

Of course, the counter-argument there is that they paid you for your work, and that's why it's their property. It may follow that if the work is theirs and you can't use it, then surely your student loan in its entirety would also be their responsibility for just that reason.

Shame I have more important problems to solve in the meantime, that idea could be quite fascinating to work through.

> If you went to work on Google's new Speech Recognition, which is AI-based - it would basically be impossible not to pass on know how and relevant knowledge. The application-specific skills are basically IP.

If Nuance wants to pay me to not work for google for a long time - fine. As long as the non compete is fully paid that's fine.

Without pay from my former competitor, it must of course be completely within my rights to go to Google and develop in 1 year what took me 10 years at Nuance. That's what my experience does - helps me do the same thing quicker. That experience, and nuances "Trade Secrets" are more or less the same thing. Nuance paid me for years of failed attempts and dead ends. Google pays me (more) to not repeat them.

> The application-specific skills are basically IP.

No. Those application-specific skills are called experience.

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