[OkayPhysicist]

California has pretty friendly laws on this. Unless your startup is directly competing with your employer, or you work on it at work, they have very little ground to stand on. As in "within the realm of someone representing themselves"-type deal.

[LastNevadan]

You're presumably referring to California Civil Code §2870 [1].

When I had a side project going on and asked my California attorney if this was enough to protect me from my BigCo employer, she said something like, "No. If they want to stop you they'll just drown you in legal procedures that you can't afford to pay. That you're right isn't really that relevant."

[1] https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-lab...

[encoderer]

Definitely a risk - just not one I rate too high if there is no overlap in the business.

[flashgordon]

Except when you are at a faang almost anything can be seen as competition. It is quite miraculous that the Crontic founders employer was this lax!