> ran it on Apple's dime

I'm sorry, but when I go home at night and choose to spend my remaining hours awake on my own project, that's 100% mine. I bought and paid for it. Instead of spending time with friends or loved ones, playing video games, going out and having fun, I labored.

> wandered the hallways recruiting people for it

This makes it sound like you can't have professional relationships or friends at work. Or that you wouldn't want to work with those people after joining another company.

> I'm sorry, but when I go home at night and choose to spend my remaining hours awake on my own project, that's 100% mine.

The problem comes in when you blur the lines between your personal project and what you are paid by Apple to do. At what point are you working on your thing versus Apple's and who is paying you to do it?

The big question is what he was doing while purportedly on the clock. Was he using Apple provided hardware, software, and time to further his own personal ends?

> This makes it sound like you can't have professional relationships or friends at work.

Ethics are hard, lines are blurry. It's best to avoid the blurry bits and keep to the places where you are clearly in the right.

Maintaining relationships while working is fine. Recruiting for a side business on the other hand is a clear conflict of interest and crosses an ethical threshold IMO.

Calling your existing friends up after you quit and offering them jobs is fine.

I have no idea what this guy did, but it sounds like he was definitely in the grey areas of ethics and from the sounds of it the law.

My employer is allowed to recruit for my position while I'm still working in it, and kick me to the curb only after they've found a replacement they like (whether they're cheaper, or whatever else). Besides being a dickish thing to do, this causes me to incur a real opportunity cost corresponding to the time I could have spent searching for new employment.

It's unethical, arguably, but most companies show again and again that they're willing to behave unethically toward their employees, so I'm not sure why I should feel bad for them given that employment is a two-way business relationship. The pervasive focus on employees being "bad employees" and simultaneous tacit acceptance of corporate dickishness is an insidious and toxic double standard that should not be tolerated.

You are similarly "allowed" to search for another job while working for a company, which is 1:1 comparable to your idea of the company looking for your replacement while you are still there.

What the company isn't doing is billing you for the time they spend doing it, or having you spend your free time doing it while you are at home.

What someone does in their own free time with their own resources is their business. What they do while they are at work, getting paid is "company" business and should be treated as such.

These aren't at all comparable unless the employee can use the employer's time, money, and resources to search for a better job.

Beyond this, I find it ridiculous that you're comparing humans with thoughts and feelings and limited time on this earth to wholly inanimate corporations. We should err on the side of giving humans more freedom and liberty.

> These aren't at all comparable unless the employee can use the employer's time, money, and resources to search for a better job.

That's exactly what Apple this case is about, an employee who is being accused of using his employer's time, money, and resources to not just search for a better job, but to create a multi-million dollar company.

I am paid a salary, and it's understood by my employer and I that some business days I may work less than 8 hours and some business days I may work more, some days I may arrive later and leave later, and some earlier, and additionally I may work on weekends and holidays. So, my employer doesn't really have a leg to stand on if they say that I used time I sold to them to pursue my own interests, because there is no explicit agreement that any specific amount (or "non-fungible unit") of my time is theirs. Neither can they say I used their equipment or resources, if I didn't.

What basis remains upon which they can claim that I used "their" time and/or their resources and/or their equipment to conduct personal business?

Not this case, but i'm 100% sure they failed to hire a very qualified individual in the past due to their draconian non-competes (or at least their "we own everything you do" clauses).

particularly for anyone in software you have to heavily weight how good apple will look on your resume vs just submitting code to random open source projects.

As a hiring manager I definitely prioritize people who have code I can view vs people who's code has been locked in somewhere with vague claims of what they added.

This is not illegal in the state of California.

California laws protect these actions. A "conflict of interest" is not illegal in California, lol.

Apple could fire him, sure, but that doesnt mean he broke any laws.