[mimixco]

Would it be ok to work to develop a competing business and then quit to launch that business? That's unethical. There's an implied contract that when you work for someone you don't also work against them. In higher level jobs, the contract is written.

Because Amazon sells video game software, if you decide to work for them, you should not be in the business of making or selling video game software.

Your argument is a good one against letting companies like Amazon take over so many industries that they can shut everyone out!

[lamontcg]

Yeah, I'm calling bullshit on your entire premise.

If you're a non-managerial employee its unethical for any company to force you to sign a non-compete.

We've been subject to so much corporate propaganda that we don't understand what our rights are any more and have them backwards and we've been taught that up is down.

If a company teaches you to hammer nails into a 2x4 they absolutely can't prevent you from hammering a 2x4 for someone else.

Amazon's reach is too broad and they already have the playing field slanted so heavily in their direction that if you decided to compete with them they could squash you like a bug anyway. That whole premise is nonsense.

Fuck all non-competes for workers.

[mimixco]

There aren't usually non competes for workers and I totally agree there shouldn't be... unless they're salaried workers who create intellectual property.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to sell software, don't work for someone else in that business. Just sell it yourself!

[irtigor]

In my country, as a salaried dev, I can definitely get sued for copyright infringement if I decide to quit working for a company and open a competing business. Even if I didn't intentionally copied any code/asset the legal process by itself would be a hassle to deal with when I'm just starting a business and depending on how I decided to write my new stuff for my business I can indeed be found guilty because I unintentionally copied myself (same design decisions, using the same tech stack, variable naming convention, same price formula for... to the point that could be reasonable argued that I just copied and pasted some important portions if not the whole code base), so yeah, if I decided to do something like this I would quit before writing a single line of code for my business and probably take a vacation/work on something else for a few weeks, before jumping in.

[lamontcg]

yeah that's bullshit, you can own the IP you can't own what the employee knows about their field. that is just corporate overreach.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1014366577/biden-moves-to-res...

[maxsilver]

> There's an implied contract that when you work for someone you don't also work against them.

But working on something else is not "work against"? What does "work against them" mean to you?

If you work an 8 hour shift at McDonalds, and then another 8 hour shift at Burger King, have you "worked against" McDonalds?

> Because Amazon sells video game software, if you decide to work for them, you should not be in the business of making or selling video game software.

But that definition is so expansive, that no one would ever be allowed to work on anything ever again. It's impossible for anyone to build a career in anything, under a definition this broad.

If you punch a clock for Amazon, does that mean you can't work in any warehouse (because they do that), you can't work in software (because they do that), you can't work in any sort of retailer or grocery store (because they do that), you can't work in any TV or Movie production (because they do that), you can't work in gaming (they do that too), you can't work in any datacenter (they do that too), you can't work in the music industry (they do that), you can't work in book publishing (they do that), you can't work in home devices / IOT (they do that too), you can't work for UPS or FedEx (because they run their own delivery service), you can't be a pharmacist (they do that now), you can't even be a plumber or electrician (Amazon technically does that now too) and so on.

[mimixco]

I'm referring mainly to businesses that create intellectual property, but you are quite right... the problem is that Amazon is in so many businesses, which leads to poor treatment of employees, suppliers, and customers.

You would only be allowed to do shift work for a competitor under any of those examples you mentioned. No one would allow you to be a manager for the competitor.

[camgunz]

If it's a direct competition, I can see how that makes sense. But your argument is essentially that no one can take side work. Salaried photographers can't work a wedding; illustrators can't help with a friend's book; SWEs can't write a script for a friend.

There has to be a limit, and it seems like the limit that makes sense is: you did this on company time using company resources.

[mimixco]

No, the limit is does your business create or use intellectual property that is also a line of business of the company. This is how its actually handled in contracts with people who perform this kind of work.

A photographer who works in commercial ad photos and shoots weddings on the side does not compete with his employer. If he did ad shots on the side, he would. If the illustrator publishes books and helps a friend with a book (for money) that isn't published by that company, you're in a grey area. If your friend is Microsoft and Apple pays you, no grey area.

[camgunz]

Well, isn't it all a grey area though? What if the photographer's ad company is Christian, and she shoots a gay wedding? What if the SWE's work at Apple is on a product Microsoft doesn't compete with? What if the illustrator's friend's book is so low-circulation their company wouldn't illustrate it? What if the friend owed the illustrator a favor and wanted to give them some exposure, and would never have contracted the illustrator's company?

I mean, either we're talking "might makes right" and your employer just bulldozes you with "our army of lawyers defines what the grey area is", or the line is "you can't use our resources for your personal gain". I think those are really the only two options here.

[ScoobleDoodle]

If one isn't working in the games division of said company and one creates a game in their own free time, then no it is not unethical. Just because these mega corps have an interest in a broad spectrum of industries, that should not constrain employees working in unrelated sections from doing their own thing in their own time.

[mimixco]

Folks doing shift work don't usually have intellectual property constraints, but someone working on software for pay (even if it isn't games) who makes software and tries to sell it while he is working at company in that same business, regardless of the genre of the software title, is acting unethically.

Again, this is an argument in favor of working for yourself, which I totally support!

[drdaeman]

> Would it be ok [...]

As always, it depends, doesn't it? Sure, there are lots of cases where it would be unethical. But I can also see a case where it would be otherwise.

Imagine one joins a company for a cause, believing in a certain important mission they have. Then, at some point, they realize the company is now taking a "wrong" approach (e.g. had a hidden agenda or makes a certain decision you strongly disagree with). Can we really say it would be universally unethical to leave said company over a disagreement and do things the right way instead? Thinking only about ethics and not the legal aspects - they can't work there because they've started to do a wrong thing, and no one shouldn't have to give up on their ideas based on a history of having associated with "wrong" people.

I guess this is another argument against knowledge being considered someone's property.

[mimixco]

It's never wrong to leave if you disagree with the company's direction. We would have far less evil companies if more people did this!

There's a great real world example in the HP 9110A, the world's first desktop computer. The inventor worked for Smith Corona Marchant and the machine he proposed was way ahead of what they wanted to do, so he quit. He shopped it out and HP hired him as a consultant to build it (he never wanted to be anyone's employee anymore, which is the crux of my entire argument here), but HP did have to pay a license fee to SCM to make sure they had the rights to the machine because it was developed while he worked there.

Of course, since no one ever heard of SCM and HP is a household word, clearly quitting and doing your own thing was the right decision!

[MrStonedOne]

You are working for your employer for ~40 hours a week. There are 168 hours in a week. It is never acceptable for an employer to tell you what you can do with the remaining 76.2% of your time that you are not working for them.

If an employer is paying you 125k a year salary, but wants to control how you spend all 168 hours in a week of your life, then that means they are paying you 14.3 an hour, below minimum wage in amazon's home city of seattle.

Ya, no thanks.

[mimixco]

You will find that in professional work for a salary, they are not paying you for hours but for many aspects of the relationship they have with you. One of them is what you do while you're there. Another aspect is what you do while you're not. You'd be hard pressed to find any big software company that did not have rules about your "off time" in the contract, and working on competing products is definitely one of them.

This is, yet again, the reason that people should really try to get away from big companies. If you don't like how big companies don't work, folks shouldn't say, "Aw, I don't like how companies work!," they should get together with other like minded people and make a company.

Of course, they will quickly find that, regardless of that company's size, they will want the same kind of rules for their employees! It will not be a hippie commune and, if it is, it won't be in business long.

Say you do quit and start a software company with two buddies. Six months in, one of them decides to start working on a different product that you didn't want to do. He's still "doing his job," of course. Would you be ok with that? No, you would have a heart attack. Because you need that person 110% on for you and only for you.

This is the reality of business. If you operate a company where everyone isn't "on for you" all the time, you get low efficiency. This is exactly the reason that FAANG companies pay so much. This is the golden yoke. If you accept the big salary from the mother ship (which you didn't build), then you accept the golden yoke and you help keeping them build their empire. Or you quit and wash, rinse, repeat!

[anoncake]

> You will find that in professional work for a salary, they are not paying you for hours but for many aspects of the relationship they have with you.

Of course they are paying for hours. An employer has no right to control your life outside the hours it pays for.

[mimixco]

I suspect that you might not have worked in one of these positions. I assure you that it'll be in your contract.

[anoncake]

I assure you it isn't.

[aahortwwy]

> Would it be ok to work to develop a competing business and then quit to launch that business?

Yes, this is absolutely OK.

The experience, knowledge, and connections you gain by working for a particular employer belong to you, not the employer.

[mimixco]

I agree. As long as you quit before you launch or sell something. One of the best ways to start your own business is to learn everything you can under someone else, then go work in that industry.

As an employer myself, I encourage and seek out employees with this mindset. If they are truly entrepreneurial and want to own something, that's good for me if they apply that mindset to my company (and are remunerated accordingly, of course.)

What I meant (and what the Amazon issue is about), is that it's not ethical to start announcing or selling a competing product while you work there. In the case of software, it's seriously uncool to develop competing software in your "off time" and then come out of the gate with it.

[anoncake]

No. Your employer is simply irrelevant outside work hours. It's as if you had quit.

[mimixco]

Did you have a salaried job in programming where that was in your contract?

[anoncake]

This isn't about contracts, it's about rights.