[buildbot]

Yep! While yeah I am selling IP for some small bonus, it's way, way easier and a guaranteed return on my investment vs. creating a startup or trying to get someone to license a patent. I've done a few patents now at my current job, and it's literally about 4 hours of investment from me for each one to get the summary written up, talk to the lawyers, and then review their patent draft.

Also, the patent lawyers I worked with had so much domain experience (ML) that it was kinda scary.

[mk89]

Well it depends a lot on the patent, I guess. Some patents are definitely not worth a startup, so probably it's not a bad idea to get some bonus and be done with it.

However it's cool for big companies to show they have thousands of patents.

[pugworthy]

It's cool for individual contributors to say they have 30-40 patents too. We all get our thrills different ways.

[mellavora]

Yeah, on that 'creating a startup' approach. Tried it, indeed much much harder.