To play devil’s advocate - where do you draw the line? They say they’re not going to push further into competing, but what if they did? I don’t know enough about either platform to really comment on how much of a big it is / how much they crossover. I do feel that it shows somewhat bad judgement on behalf of the intern to build something in exactly the same space as a former employer. One of the great things about software is that you can always move into another domain with your skills.
Obviously, I love the likes of Tailscale for embracing and supporting this behaviour - but that’s super exceptional (because they’re a strong team).
Well the line is law: infringing copyrights and patents. And the US law is very specific about ideas not being copyrightable, so clones are usually safe.
Yeah that’s fair - and to be clear, I’m not really defending the CEO in this case. As a founder, I was just imagining a scenario where one of our team did something similar and how I might react to it. My thoughts (and point) drifted a bit.
Serves more as a reminder to the youngsters out there that potential future hirers will use things like this to inform hiring decisions. Legal or not, your history follows you around (I’m old enough to be lucky to not have the stupid stuff I did early in my career available online). Be free, go build stuff for fun but keep clear of your employers space.