It depends on details of his contract. It's quite plausible his employment contract in "Project X" did say that he would transfer knowledge and ideas in exchange for money. It's pretty standard stuff.

In other words, it might not be exactly a slam dunk case. A racketeering charge seems pretty outrageous as well.

However if Google did these things (which looks like they did), it would make them look shady. Maybe legally in the clear but ethically like you said, it would seem they threw their reputation under the bus.

Maybe once companies are a certain size they think they are untouchable and say stuff like "Yeah this is shady, but we've got lawyers and PR people to handle this, no biggie"

And this is why maybe a charge like racketeering is nice move - it might not be winnable in court, but it is outrageous enough to damage Google's reputation. Had it been some mundane case over a minor legal term, we wouldn't have found out.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15422475

I'm curious about your comment that this is "pretty standard stuff." Do you mean in the context of Google X agreements? Do you transfer intellectual property to them as part of the employment contract?

Are you paid a flat fee? Do they pay a "kill" fee if Google X ultimately decides not pursue your idea and terminates your employment agreement?

> Are you paid a flat fee? Do they pay a "kill" fee if Google X ultimately decides not pursue your idea and terminates your employment agreement?

No idea, maybe someone could share. I would imagine it is a customized contract tailed for each contributor / collaborator. The important bit is it is a contract, so unless it is illegal any "kill" clauses could have been put in there.

I still turned it down and decided to go freelance instead because the contracts I had read had raised all kinds of personal questions.

As for 'your partner' - that seems pretty crazy, and I don't understand how that would hold up for a second in court.

As for 'perpetuity' - meaning - ideas you had long after employment? Or - that they'd own the ideas you give them while employed, forever. If the later, well, again I think that's somewhere near standard. If the former, that's beyond crazy and I think not even enforceable.

But the 'partner' bit alone seems beyond creepy because their lawyers are not stupid, they must know it's a pretty wobbly thing not likely to stand up in court, ergo it's kind of a scare tactic.

Google/GV was shit listed by a bunch of startup founders in Portland many years ago because they "stole a company" they were partnering with there. The founder was somebody everybody liked and PDX tech didn't take it well (and yes, we all talk to each other).

This does happen and you need to be very careful with these sorts of arrangements. They know they put stars in people's eyes and I've seen them take advantage of it.

Not trolling: What reputation?

Among non-techies, their reputation is one of creepy and spying.

Among techies, it's that company that keeps killing loved products.

Among developers, it's one of terrible support and awful job interviews.

Common to everyone is they are impossible to get hold of, a faceless and heartless machine that makes decisions you can't argue with.

None of this matters because they have the best products on the market in a few key areas and everyone keeps using those regardless of their reputation.

So what reputation do they have to lose? Their reputation is already bad, and it doesn't matter anyway, and they presumably know this as well as everyone else does.

Google has had four lawsuits which look bad for them make Hacker news or the reddit front page in the last year, which I can't imagine is good for their PR. Anecdotally, I also see a lot of people in tech where I work growing a disdain for them, including myself. I went so far as to buy a new phone to put LineageOS on a few weeks ago because I don't like the direction the company is heading.

   2015 - #10
   2014 - #14
   2013 - #4
   2012 - #2
   2011 - #1

This really counts as collapse to you? How many companies would kill to be that widely recognized?

But even being on the list means it hasn't collapsed.

[1] http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/595ea97dd9fccd31008...

Google is an advertising company. They can easily sacrifice reputation where it brings them the most profit and fix it again with a bit of PR.

Without additional context of the judges statement (or, better, either the actual filings in the case), that's far from clear.

It's not impossible or even uncommon for a defendant in a case to make an argument in the style of “I didn't take it, and, even if I had, I had permission to take it.”

You can't infer the nonexistence of the first part of the claim from the existence of the second.

But they were under NDA not to disclose the ideas, and yet they started a company marketing a product based on those ideas. If this is a correct interpretation, they don't have the legal ability to do so.

Of course the wording of the NDA is everything in a case like this. I'm assuming Google wrote the NDA when this guy should have provided one for Google to sign.

Different equation if you need money/investment. But if you're already up, running and growing it's easier to play hard ball and demand an NDA.

This is why, when you visit Google, you should never sign the overreaching NDA for a visitor's badge. You still get a visitor's badge; it just has a warning on it so Googlers know not to tell you too much.

As for reputation, why would a behemoth like Google care if they squash a little guy (or two, or a dozen)? Even if they go on a PR offensive they still won't be able to outmatch or shout over Google. At most people like the HN audience will find out and then... proceed to do nothing because Google's products are either ubiquitous (like search) or first-in-class (because they are free, like email).

That is, in fact, exactly what the case is trying to demonstrate by referring to several other lawsuits against Google for similar acts. Remains to be seen if it works.