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Comment by rubiquity | Hacker News Reader

Pretty amazing that the former director of the NSA can start a company in his former employer's space without being sued and yet as programmers we can't get a job anywhere without signing huge stacks of papers that make doing the same nearly impossible, or scary enough to where we don't even bother.

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The NSA's job isn't private cyber security. Also, non-competes are evil.

The point is there seems to be different rules governing people who come from different positions or social classes in our society.

That doesn't sound right at all. CEOs are more likely to be bound by noncompetes than line employees. Equally importantly, the noncompete of a CEO is much more likely to be enforceable. Contractual restrictions on competition probably become more onerous as economic status increases.

The best known example for this are bankers. As a rule of thumb, bankers don't go to jail.

I demand a review of all his equipment to see if he was using Govt equipment and/or time to work on these ideas. If so, no patent awarded. VS commercial sector where patents go to court and end up in the hands of the parent company that provided the equipment.

Suing General Alexander would probably do more harm than good -- this stint in the private industry is likely just another carrot on a stick that he's offering to the world's greatest hackers.

"Work for the NSA and you get will leave with a very powerful patent portfolio, and (most importantly) minimal risk of getting sued!"

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