6 ms·

Oh yes, I was also there! But I remember many people came out of that event hearing very different things from PG (there were also small presentations from YC a

by leelin 8y ago

Oh yes, I was also there! But I remember many people came out of that event hearing very different things from PG (there were also small presentations from YC alums hiring). I remember PG saying NYC had clearly overtaken Boston as #2 startup up in the US, partly because Boston investors were more risk averse and focused on the late stages. Then he asked whether NYC could rival the Bay Area for #1. I don't think he made a definitive conclusion one way or another. I even remember him saying the unstoppable force of the startup revolution would hit the immovable object - that NYC is already known as many other hubs (finance in particular). The one concept that stood out was his argument that "chance encounters" with people who can help your startup are crucial. Good luck sometimes hits when you least expect it, but NYC at the time didn't have all the ingredients in place the way the Bay Area had. A month later he wrote this down more formally in "Why Startup Hubs Work" http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hubs.html

btilly 8y ago
To me a bigger deal is that New York law by default grants copyright on work done in your spare time on your own equipment to your employer. Therefore if you try to grow a side hustle into a business, you can unexpectedly find that you don't actually have what you thought you had. I know multiple people, directly and indirectly, who have been caught by this. Knowledge of this problem contributed to my desire to move from New York to California. Most of the stories of squashed startups will never be heard because they never got anywhere. But it limits how dynamic New York's startup ecosystem can become. This is not to say that there won't be successful startups. Just fewer than they would have been. And people who you'd want to be able to start them, are shut out.
- sambroner 8y ago
  Do you have a reference for this? And are there similar or opposite laws affecting other states?
  - btilly 8y ago
    I have personal experience relating to this. It is worth noting that awareness of this issue is why the FSF explicitly requires copyright assignment and a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. Because employees often do not realize that their employer could have a copyright claim, and the FSF is very careful. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html for verification.
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  As of last time I checked a few years ago, NY law was silent on rules for the copyright ownership scenario you describe. That leaves the federal default in place of "creator keeps the copyright when there is no explicit assignment unless it qualifies as a work for hire." Only work done within the scope of employment would be employer-owned by default, not unrelated spare time projects. However, indeed NY's legal silence on this point allows contracts to explicitly assign the category of work you describe to the employer, if they include wording to that effect, subject only to any case law that might seem something excessive (not sure what NY courts have said on this topic). The difference with California in this regard is that they actually prohibit and refuse to enforce contractual assignment of unrelated spare-time projects to the employer. Far stronger than a default. The attitude to post-employment non-competes is also very different: aside from a very narrow M&A exception, California flat out bans those. NY disfavors them and courts often limit or discard them as unreasonable upon examination, but they're not categorically banned. That has a significant chilling effect. Note I'm not a lawyer, just a law-geek former law student layman. Pay for qualified legal advice with appropriate licensure if you need that (I do that too despite my legal interests).
  - btilly 8y ago
    As of 2002, the advice of a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law to me was that work created by a professional employee on their own time is by default a work for hire, and I was a professional employee. I later met other people who were in the same situation. Telling whether I was a professional employee was simple. The three categories are contractor or hourly. If you don't know yourself to be a contractor, and you don't punch a clock, then you are a professional employee. Most software developers in New York are either contractors or professional employees. New York law could have changed since then. This is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer. However it is my understanding of legal advice that I actually received. As you note, California law is much stronger. The one catch is that your employer can claim ownership of anything related to what they do. Not what you do for them, but what they do. If your employer has their fingers in a lot of pies, like Google and Amazon do, you may not realize that what you're doing is related to something that they do.

by leelin 8y ago

btilly 8y ago

To me a bigger deal is that New York law by default grants copyright on work done in your spare time on your own equipment to your employer. Therefore if you try to grow a side hustle into a business, you can unexpectedly find that you don't actually have what you thought you had. I know multiple people, directly and indirectly, who have been caught by this. Knowledge of this problem contributed to my desire to move from New York to California. Most of the stories of squashed startups will never be heard because they never got anywhere. But it limits how dynamic New York's startup ecosystem can become. This is not to say that there won't be successful startups. Just fewer than they would have been. And people who you'd want to be able to start them, are shut out.

sambroner 8y ago
Do you have a reference for this? And are there similar or opposite laws affecting other states?
- btilly 8y ago
  I have personal experience relating to this. It is worth noting that awareness of this issue is why the FSF explicitly requires copyright assignment and a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. Because employees often do not realize that their employer could have a copyright claim, and the FSF is very careful. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html for verification.
jkaplowitz 8y ago
As of last time I checked a few years ago, NY law was silent on rules for the copyright ownership scenario you describe. That leaves the federal default in place of "creator keeps the copyright when there is no explicit assignment unless it qualifies as a work for hire." Only work done within the scope of employment would be employer-owned by default, not unrelated spare time projects. However, indeed NY's legal silence on this point allows contracts to explicitly assign the category of work you describe to the employer, if they include wording to that effect, subject only to any case law that might seem something excessive (not sure what NY courts have said on this topic). The difference with California in this regard is that they actually prohibit and refuse to enforce contractual assignment of unrelated spare-time projects to the employer. Far stronger than a default. The attitude to post-employment non-competes is also very different: aside from a very narrow M&A exception, California flat out bans those. NY disfavors them and courts often limit or discard them as unreasonable upon examination, but they're not categorically banned. That has a significant chilling effect. Note I'm not a lawyer, just a law-geek former law student layman. Pay for qualified legal advice with appropriate licensure if you need that (I do that too despite my legal interests).
- btilly 8y ago
  As of 2002, the advice of a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law to me was that work created by a professional employee on their own time is by default a work for hire, and I was a professional employee. I later met other people who were in the same situation. Telling whether I was a professional employee was simple. The three categories are contractor or hourly. If you don't know yourself to be a contractor, and you don't punch a clock, then you are a professional employee. Most software developers in New York are either contractors or professional employees. New York law could have changed since then. This is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer. However it is my understanding of legal advice that I actually received. As you note, California law is much stronger. The one catch is that your employer can claim ownership of anything related to what they do. Not what you do for them, but what they do. If your employer has their fingers in a lot of pies, like Google and Amazon do, you may not realize that what you're doing is related to something that they do.