It wouldn't have been the first time they allegedly do it like that:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/339sty/ju...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelp#Private_company_.282009.E...

Use E2E encryption to coordinate, communicate, etc but don't expect those services, software, and the hardware they run on to protect you or your company and ideas in any real meaningful manner.

What's the paranoia level of this suggestion?

I mean, if you could prove that company X stole your novel idea from a conversation between you and someone not working for X on X's platform, you'd definitely come out on top right?

So surely companies big enough to have a reasonable chance of such conversations going on aren't so stupid as to snoop for product ideas?

The kind of paranoia level that's reasonable to have, nowadays. If you're too young to have heard of Snowden, read up on him. If you're too old to remember Snowden, read up on him. The concept of industrial espionage is not just a concept, it's being done all the time.

Now you may assume that upper management would not want to have something come to light and would therefor not engage in it. The thing is, upper management does not control what employee X does. And employee X may want to get that promotion after all.

The fact that society shifts more an more of their lives onto Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. servers boggles my mind. And they don't even end-to-end-encrypt (assuming that encryption is currently not broken yet).

Does that apply to anyone reading HN in 2016?

My asking about paranoia level was not intended to slight. Some amount is healthy in this context, as you say.

I suppose my point was that although not every employee can be relied upon, surely this fact means that such companies, not wishing to get into trouble, don't allow employees access to data like that.

End-to-end encryption is obviously a good idea. Though I also appreciate that not having it (and, e.g. "Snoopers' Charter") catches bad guys - for some order of 'badness' that isn't extreme enough that we can assume they're all up on encryption (as is the common argument for it being ineffective against terrorism) e.g. paedophiles rings.

Likewise, one of his start-ups' (1 million unique visitors per day) entire closed-source code base is on Github.

From a legal and commercial point of view, it would be devastating to Google et al. if they were found to be stealing IP like that.

After posting this YouTube video demonstration .. 2 weeks later they and many others came knocking/expressed interest https://youtu.be/CAnEFOr1lP4

They have a large set of stakeholders who need to sign off, and they work on different timelines, and they have whole departments of people whose job it is to develop and propose acquisitions, of which maybe one in ten actually happen.

A real offer comes with a real check. Don't engage more than very high level without a letter of intent. Don't stop what you're doing until the check clears.

(Of course someone uploaded it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlwwVuSUUfc)

RE: that clip ....yeah and you can tell them your secret at that time, but they don't own you/your team, skills, passion nor the improvements made to the work over time. They just know how we were able to sync audio across any IP device via the web after two months into development. A ton has changed since then and 100% for the better.

Ok sure I am going to sign that for you ... yeah right!

I probably could have publicly talked about this early then May 2015, but I always keep my word until Im no longer legally binded too.

I am curious if any of what they learned was then used in ChromeCast Audio as that GUY who invited me is a tech lead on that project.