[jmillikin]

  > Hey Chris, good to know for any consulting companies
  > (like the OP's) that okcupid/IAC might want to hire!
  > It's nice that you're not so concerned about trade secrets!

Snideness is unbecoming.

A more straightforward way to write your comment would be "Since you believe that the OP did not divulge trade secrets and are opposed to apparently frivolous legal action, you must not care about protecting your own trade secrets."

The problems with this position should be obvious.

[malgorithms]

Thanks! Actually, I'm happy to address this comment now that it got your positive rephrasing. But first I should add I no longer work at OkCupid, and even if I did, the company is far bigger than one person's opinion. What I'm stating on HN is my personal opinion, not OkC's.

Ok, I personally find this kind of lawsuit deplorable for 2 reasons:

(1) The world is better when people share ideas and don't try to claim ownership over them. If, while I worked at OkCupid, someone left my company and used "secrets" we held to start or improve a competitor, I would believe it was their right. And that I had failed to nurture their creativity or compensate them well enough.

(2) This is an individual being assaulted at a corporate magnitude.