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Comment by capitalsigma | Hacker News Reader

Posting names of employees with their company affiliation on your landing page seems like a questionable move. FAANG contracts typically include a clause that the company owns any work done in your free time unless you have explicitly gone through a process to transfer ownership. Whatever work these SWEs have done on your platform, if it's successful, it's entirety possible that a FAANG will come after you/the buyer to claim their IP. Or the employees might get in hot water for leaking trade secrets if their contract work is even vaguely related to their main job.

It looks to me like you are putting everyone involved at risk for the sake of your marketing.

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No large tech company contract actually says that, and if it did it would anyways be unenforceable. At most they can claim whatever you do on company time and using company resources. It's a myth that every side project you work on and every thought you have in the shower is automatically owned by your company.

Companies sometimes do require you to disclose the work that you do off the clock, but that's just so they can review it for conflicts. I have worked at multiple FAANGs and known lots of people who had side businesses or consulting gigs, all completely above board.

You are 100% wrong.

Yes, you can submit for permission, and you have to. Because those clauses are in there. And if you think you will survive a legal battle with a FAANG that is your employer... well good luck to you.

At Google there is a process where if you want to submit e.g. a patch to a FOSS project on github, you need to send it to some team that reviews it for conflicts of interest first. There is another process for releasing your own software publicly where you need to ask permission to retain ownership of the IP because the default is for it to go to Google. When you join, you need to list IP that you owned before joining in order for it to be exempt from the process.

I have heard that these clauses are unenforceable, yeah, but that doesn't mean that these employees (who seem to mostly be fairly junior) aren't going to be in hot water if this page gets back to whatever part of the company is responsible for attempting to enforce them.

Is there case law on this? The CA moonlighting law heavily implies that a huge company could claim to own nearly anything you produce (as an exception that proves the rule).

> (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 except for those inventions that either:

> (1) 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; or

> (2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.

A huge company like Google can claim nearly anything relates to their business, so they could trigger (1) even if you don't do that kind of work for them.

In practice, I agree they usually don't care about side projects and wouldn't take action even if you didn't get an exception, but there is substantial risk if you are contributing to a significant project that ever attracts their gaze.

There is an appendix in CA that is required to be included in employment contracts (and applies even if they exclude it) that states an exception. Any work done by the employee cannot be claimed unless it:

1) Is done on work time, or 2) on work property (the office), or 3) using work equipment (an employer-provided laptop, for example, or their IP)

This provision is a bedrock for why startups became such a huge thing in CA: people could work on side projects that turned into startups and not worry about ownership by their employer.

> It's a myth that every side project you work on and every thought you have in the shower is automatically owned by your company.

It's a myth... until the lawyers come round and start serving papers on your ass.

You have been watching too much Suits.

The author of Nginx had his offices raided by the cops because his employer was pursuing criminal copyright infringement claims over Nginx, which was written while he was an employee of that company.

Do you want to hazard law enforcement busting your door down and raiding your home or office, even if you think you might prevail in court?

> The author of Nginx had his offices raided by the cops because his employer was pursuing criminal copyright infringement claims over Nginx, which was written while he was an employee of that company.

...and that was also in Russia.

OK, so your employer might only go for your nuts with criminal action in a corrupt oligarchy. Like Russia. Or... the... USA.

You’re incorrect You haven’t looked closely enough. Many of the tech companies do require signing documents like this. And they’re enforceable in some states & not others.

Do you have any example(s) of cases where those were enforced since you claim they are enforcable in some places?

Not sure about other FAANG but at microsoft the contract is explicitly that anything you do during work or with company resources is owned by the company, not just everything you do at any time.

Just do it evenings and weekends and don’t use your work laptop.

Amazon's contract says something similar. A court case might be difficult to win if your project is very close to your work projects, but other than that, a company generally has to prove that you used company resources in some way for your project in order to claim ownership.

(And don't use the people's employers company names in marketing material.)

I believe that the stuff you do also has nothing to do with work. Like if you would build a competitor to Excel it would probably be something that MS could say they own. With that said, it’s a gray area though, as software engineering isn’t that clear cut.

Huh. I assumed only smaller companies would ever make those sorts of carve-outs

Though, I also live in Texas. I wonder if it's required in states that have better labor laws?

> FAANG contracts typically include a clause that the company owns any work done in your free time

Is this for real?? What a dystopian hell hole. It's called "free time". Do you need to purchase from the company store and live in their approved housing as well?

And you constantly bemoan unions here, looks like you could need someone helping you out with worker's rights..

Do you think it would be ethical for someone to work on search ranking at Google and moonlight doing SEO work? Would it be ethical for this person to implement a search ranking algorithm in their spare time and license it out to competitors? What if they don't work on ranking themselves, but they spend their spare time reading through the ranking codebase, which they have access to for some legitimate business reason (say, doing large scale refactors)?

Noncompetes are their own well-defined clause; the IP/inventions clause is a totally separate thing, and the unqualified version is totally unjustifiable, they just throw in there because they can

That's a straw man, though, as the clause stated any work, not competing work.

There’s a thing called “conflict of interest” and it’s only a problem under specific circumstances.

It's common for non-FAANGs too. I make it a hard rule that I won't take a job with one of those clauses, but it's often in there by default, which means I either convince them to do a carve-out or turn down the offer.

Whether it's a deal-breaker for you or not, make sure you read what you sign

> looks like you could need someone helping you out with worker's rights..

Let's see it do something for European SWE salaries first. Oslo: just as expensive as SF @ 1/3 the salary.

I guess there's a reason you want the right to moonlight in the evenings...

Meh, a developer in Oslo have no problems with money. I'd rather our teachers, nurses etc got paid more before I do.

Yeah, I'm sure that money you're getting shorted is going to teachers instead of the owners pockets.

As someone working on government projects for most of my career, I don't think the "owners" pocket that much, really.

Would I like to make more money? Yes! Do I think I would be happier somewhere else? Probably not! I like living in a "flat" society where most people are treated well. If anything, if it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have been able to have the career I now have.

No it's not real, this is something internet people tell each other in the absolute absence of any practical knowledge.

Thank you for your comment! All these folks on the homepage actually completed bounties while being college students (most of them at Williams College in Massachusetts, our alma mater) before landing their entry-level jobs. They were the first peps that tried out Algora while we were building it out. - Ioannis

I don't think those people are real people. Searched Twitter and Google for their name + company (a sample of five of them) and didn't find anything, so chances are they are generated profiles.

Which, would make this section of the landing page even worse (I think?).

If you searched for me you wouldn’t find me either but I’m a real person.

I'm obviously not saying that "Zero internet presence = not a real person" but more like "if 100% of the profiles featured on a marketing page for a product don't have any social media profiles, it's probably fake testimony"

Why would that be the case? I would say this applied to at least half of the people I've worked with in the past.

Yes - unless the employees get permission from $corp, they will end up in deep trouble. Alternatively, if this Algora company behind the landing page didn't get permission from said people to put them on the landing page, Algora will be liable and can expect to promptly receive a C&D takedown request from $corp legal.

Why? Because it's confusing to the point that it could seem like Google or Snap or whatever corporate entity is endorsing Algora.

Many commenters confused here by different contracts in tech that say differently.

In California, there is an appendix that is required to be included in employment contracts (and applies even if they exclude it) that states an exception. Any work done by the employee cannot be claimed unless it:

1) Is done on work time, or

2) on work property (the office), or

3) using work equipment (an employer-provided laptop, for example, or their IP)

This provision is a bedrock for why startups became such a huge thing in CA: people could work on side projects that turned into startups and not worry about ownership by their employer.

Tech companies will often include this provision throughout their work force, even if you don't work in CA or another state that has a similar provision.

TLDR: If you're in CA, your work on your own time/equipment/home is yours, no matter what your employer says.

Edit: some friends of mine have worked at companies where you need to get "approved" to do side projects. They can fire you for doing side work without permission, but point still stands that they can't claim it unless you touched the work during work hours, or with a work laptop, or used their IP.

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