How to moonlight if it's not allowed?

Twitch
Hjjjjjjj

Go to company page Twitch

Hjjjjjjj
Apr 23, 2018 11 Comments

Do you just not tell Amazon about your side project and only quit once it becomes successful or right before it gets funding and you create a LLC?

Any tips from those who have done this successfully?

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TOP 11 Comments
  • Google
    MzIJ73

    Go to company page Google

    MzIJ73
    Terrible idea. You sign away your IP rights to anything you come up with within the scope of your employment contract. It's very easy for your employer to claim that you wouldn't have come up with whatever idea if you hadn't been employed by them.

    Dunno about Amazon but Google has a process where you can get a release for an idea if its judged to not be competitive with an area of Google's business. If you don't do something like this, you might not get pursued after leaving, but you might and it's not at all worth the risk of forfeiting a large stake in your new venture to your old employer
    Apr 23, 2018 2
    • Twitch
      Hjjjjjjj

      Go to company page Twitch

      Hjjjjjjj
      OP
      So you're saying we all should quit our jobs before pursuing anything even if it would probably fail 99%, that sucks
      Apr 23, 2018
    • Amazon
      VpYJ78

      Go to company page Amazon

      VpYJ78
      Response is technically correct from a legal perspective but totally irrelevant from a practical position. Amazon loses half their devs every two years and needs to replace them, not steal your IP worth maybe a few million and scare off thousands of experienced devs with options. Unless your idea is worth 50 billion+ dollars or is directly related to your work at Amazon, you'll be fine. Here's a practical suggestion: work on your project on your local machine and keep local backups. Commit it to github 2 months after you quit. Now, if you're asking if you can uh... found your own startup and get paying customers while *continuing to work for amazon*, you're being really silly. Can you imagine why an employer might not be ok with you working for two companies simultaneously?
      Apr 24, 2018
  • eBay
    ottoman

    Go to company page eBay

    ottoman
    Work on your personal machine only

    Don’t let any of your work touch employer property

    Don’t let any of your work make its way online (publicity or source code) until after you quit
    Apr 24, 2018 0
  • Google
    Nlp

    Go to company page Google

    Nlp
    Not a lawyer.

    Instead of thinking about this as a clear cut scenario think about it as a probability distribution. Legal risk is a quantity. Estimate expected value and act accordingly.
    Apr 23, 2018 0
  • Intel
    Hod

    Go to company page Intel

    Hod
    I'm pretty sure that in California moonlighting is perfectly legal and they don't own anything of yours as long as you don't do it on company time or equipment.
    Apr 25, 2018 1
    • Google
      cctv-tomato

      Go to company page Google

      cctv-tomato
      Not true. Depends heavily on the circumstance and your employment agreement. Definitely worth looking in to, likely with a lawyer, if it matters a lot to you.
      Apr 26, 2018
  • Microsoft / Other
    Ruxin73

    Go to company page Microsoft Other

    BIO
    Moving on up
    Ruxin73
    Hey in my org at MS they don’t own our IP. I mean obviously don’t use corporate resources to make it but then you are set. I would honestly just look to move to a job where there are no parallels. You gotta sacrifice a little to pull shit off.
    Apr 23, 2018 1