[btilly]

PowerSet is in California.

California has fairly strong protection for employee's intellectual property in stuff they do on their own time that is not relevant to their employer's business. This protection is, admittedly, more effective if you're employed by a small company with a focused business than if you're employed by a major corporation that does a bit of everything. But github doesn't sound much like a natural language search engine, so I doubt there were any IP issues to worry about.

See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&#3... for the relevant statute.

[ajays]

I think this single piece of legislation has done more for California's startup scene than anything else.