alt Hacker NewsI have never gone from one job to another where the new job was in the same exact industry I was in prior, but I'm glad I never have to be thrown into such a scenario where I'm accused of taking confidential data, I can only imagine for some employers that makes you a red flag, very dangerous territory to be in.
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I agree it feels scary from the employee's perspective, but at least in this case, it doesn't seem like it would've been difficult to avoid: simply return your work devices when handing in your badge:
> [...] multiple former Apple employees now working at OpenAI reached out to discuss returning Apple-issued work devices they kept when they left Apple.
By not doing that you effectively just cry "sue me", this is stupidity on the employee's part (or malice). Oh and maybe don't take "screenshots of confidential documents".
These guys are pushing boundaries knowingly.
A good company also doesn’t want you to take IP bc it creates the liability.
I really think this is apple feeling really threatened rather than confidential data really being stolen.
Apple is known for threatening companies that hire from them, and occasionally having secret agreements with other companies not to hire from each other.
People move from a company to a direct competitor all the time (i have a number of friends that went from working at aws to working on gcloud for example) and guess what, no one of those companies really went bankrupt due to this.
So really long story short: i think apple is being a sore loser at the employee retention game.
It's not hard if you are honest
People in silicon valley do this every day. California has a lot of laws to protect employees. Companies need tangible proof of a violation, not just "this guy had vague company IP in his head".
> I [...] imagine for some employers that makes you a red flag
Maybe. It also advertises a moral flexibility that is high in-demand here in America. Clearly OpenAI has no scruples entertaining a turncoat of this scale, I can believe that businesses will be lined up out the door to hire these people.
The only time I did that, the company I was leaving begged me to take one of their corp laptops with me so I could offer "consulting" to them on the side. I never called them on their plausible deniability, I just said I felt that would be a conflict of interest and they shut up real fast.