i mean you're right, he doesn't have to. but i'm pointing out that he's not being personally persecuted for no reason. doing literally anything else than open sourcing his employer's tech stack makes the whole concern about needing protection pretty unnecessary.

ianal but absent some nda seems like it's probably legal for him to do it.

it just seems like kind of a dick move. i could mentor new engineers, wait until someone told me about a really cool idea, then steal it from them and build it myself. there's no law against it, it's just is kind of a dick move and seems kind of wrong.

as noted above, ceo is acting like a dick as well. but i think the way this dude is trying to play the victim through clickbaiting HN is a bit much. just my opinion.