> If the company pushes back you really don't want to work for them. Seriously.
I would have agreed with you in the past, but the offer is otherwise exceptional. Like, getting-into-Harvard exceptional, from what I can tell, especially for someone with such a weird career track.
> "2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information"
https://web.archive.org/web/20160516081153/http://www.leginf...
They can be as unflexible about this as they want. Stuff you built outside the scope of the company, AND outside working hours, AND not using company resources, is yours.
> "(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable. "
The reason why you want to cross out that section isn't so much as to signal non-compliance as to communicate, that that part of the contract is illegal by California law.
If the contract does not have a special clause about illegality, leaving that paragraph in might make the entire contract void.
> Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer...
If the company has its fingers in many pies across the software landscape, then this might apply to a majority of software that could be written. Also, the company didn't imply that they would try to claim ownership, only that such behavior wouldn't be permitted by company policy.