With top talent, you never really employ it. You just sponsor it. If you fail to recognize this, people become demotivated and that talent is either meaningless, or turned against you.
The problem is that employers, and almost all of them are this way, are do damn short-sighted. They'll pinch pennies on benefits, lay people off for the slightest reason or no reason, and burn hours of time on psychotic, all-consuming performance review systems, while missing the fucking point, which is: the real existential risk is when innovation stops. None of that other shit really matters.
An employee "stealing an idea", except in spy work, is a minor insult at worst. As far as I'm concerned, it's the responsibility of the company to provide conditions that are good enough (e.g. job stability, resources) that people would rather stay than "steal" their ideas off to elsewhere. If they can't or don't, then I have no sympathy.
The problem is that professional management culture rewards the mindless, minuscule cost-cutting that is often just externalizing costs to the future. That's where we get companies that put these onerous clauses in place, failing to realize that their pulling that kind of shit is killing the energy they'd need if they wanted true innovation.
If a company wants to excel-- instead of simply being a scam through which management robs investors (of their money) and employees (of their time and careers)-- it needs to give its people support, autonomy, and trust. Yes, a few people will "steal" from the company (by which I mean abusing that autonomy) but most won't have that inclination in the slightest, and more money will be made on the latter (by orders of magnitude) than is lost on the former.
I wish this comment were further towards the top. Our system is clearly set up to pump the rewards for innovation into the pockets of founders, executives, and investors, but not so much inventors and builders. I don't think it naturally has to be that way.
What if people got nontrivial amounts of stock for their inventions, instead of the couple grand or pat on the back most companies dole out? Would that help reinvigorate the hard tech industry, which is losing people [1] to creating the next Instagram-meets-Yelp-but-for-kittens?
Most people (85%) don't mind subordinate roles as long as they're generally treated decently. They don't have ambitious career goals or strong opinions on what they should be doing with their time.
I'm not saying that such people should be "owned". That's pretty reprehensible. I'm saying that they don't require an amount of autonomy incompatible with the standard employment context.
The problem is that employers, and almost all of them are this way, are do damn short-sighted. They'll pinch pennies on benefits, lay people off for the slightest reason or no reason, and burn hours of time on psychotic, all-consuming performance review systems, while missing the fucking point, which is: the real existential risk is when innovation stops. None of that other shit really matters.
An employee "stealing an idea", except in spy work, is a minor insult at worst. As far as I'm concerned, it's the responsibility of the company to provide conditions that are good enough (e.g. job stability, resources) that people would rather stay than "steal" their ideas off to elsewhere. If they can't or don't, then I have no sympathy.
The problem is that professional management culture rewards the mindless, minuscule cost-cutting that is often just externalizing costs to the future. That's where we get companies that put these onerous clauses in place, failing to realize that their pulling that kind of shit is killing the energy they'd need if they wanted true innovation.
If a company wants to excel-- instead of simply being a scam through which management robs investors (of their money) and employees (of their time and careers)-- it needs to give its people support, autonomy, and trust. Yes, a few people will "steal" from the company (by which I mean abusing that autonomy) but most won't have that inclination in the slightest, and more money will be made on the latter (by orders of magnitude) than is lost on the former.