Shopify CEO discourages employees from having side hustles | Hacker News Reader

Shopify CEO discourages employees from having side hustles

businessinsider.com

32 pointsbcarroll2214 comments

Then he should resign from the Coinbase board of directors and the Thistledown Foundation. Shopify requires his "unshared attention."

My employer has no legitimate say over what I do in my free time.

While I agree many entities have no compete clauses

https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-general-c... (“May 2023: NLRB General Counsel Issues Memo on Non-competes Violating the National Labor Relations Act“)

It's not the non-competes that matter, it's the assignments of intellectual property.

That heavily depends on where you live in the world.

Rather, it really heavily depends on what you consider to be a legitimate say.

Well, true. However, assuming good intentions, there are laws against working two/three jobs in the world in a manner that would rob you of your time to rest, which was presumably put in place to prevent a lot of undesirable things from happening. So far, I had no problems with side jobs as long as I agreed with my employer and made sure that my work/rest times are not in danger (nobody ever said no).

Yes. My attitude is that I've entered into a commercial exchange with my employer. They pay me money and in exchange get a set amount of my undivided time and attention.

They have no legitimate claim over what I do during the time that I'm not being paid. I may contractually agree to certain narrow restrictions (such as not talking about the company or the details of my work), but generally, my time is my time to spend as I see fit. In my worldview, any other stance is my employer making some sort of ownership claim over my life. That's unacceptable to me.

If what I do in my off time adversely impacts my performance on the job, then my employer can reprimand or fire me for poor performance.

No, it heavily depends on their ability to enforce it.

This CEO can't enforce it and should thus shut his mouth and continue being the quiet little corporate parasite he is.

Not only might they have a say they may have ownership of what you do in your free time. Pretty crazy

So are there any examples of Shopify employees actually not performing at their Shopify jobs because they're too busy using Shopify to run their own businesses?

If no - if the president of the company can do it and somehow be qualified to do his job - then why was this message even necessary? It just muddies the waters about what is and isn't allowed, and sends mixed messages.

Not working for competitors/in competition with your employer, I understand. Beyond that, it's none of your business what I do with non-work time.

When I worked there, they constantly talked up having a side hustle. It allowed them to hire higher quality people because comp wasn't US competitive. It is there because it was intentionally put there by Tobi and others.

Unshared time means +25% raise due to inflation. Are they doing that?

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