certainly. but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out.
trying to clearly define what exactly are ideas owned by the employer has to fail on principle. especially when you consider that even a new grad is being hired with the expectation that they are bringing ideas and techniques to bear that they developed someplace else.
> but the logical conclusion redefines 'severance' to mean leaving my head at the door on the way out.
Or just leaving the industry, or lifetime employment with a single company — hardly unthinkable; in fact, it was the rule in the US within living memory, and I've worked at companies where the majority of engineers were lifers. This would be a very favorable outcome for investors in your company: they get the fruits of your million-dollar ideas for the rest of your life, and they only have to pay you a somewhat-below-market salary, since you have no negotiating power to demand a higher one. It's not such a favorable outcome for engineers, or for hacking as a vocation or programming as a profession.
It's a favorable outcome for people who want stability. There is huge value in knowing that you're not going to get fired unless you do something actively malicious.
Some people aren't interested in climbing, have poor interviewing skills, and don't want to deal with the cognitive overhead of learning a different company's tech stack every two years. Plus, most companies tie vacation time to seniority, so being able to stay at a company for 10+ years means you'll get to have four weeks of vacation every year, while people who switch jobs every two years will always be stuck at two.
I wasn't talking about a situation where the company can't fire you. I was talking about a situation where you can't quit the company. If the company has a credible legal case against any prior employee who works for a competitor, then firing you ends your career. That makes your job less secure, not more.
If I work in medical x-ray machines, say, when I quit, I don't go to another medical x-ray company. I can still work in embedded systems, though - it's a really big world out there.
Your argument works a bit better for Shockley and Fairchild, because semiconductors was not a big world then. And it perhaps works for Levandowski today, because self-driving cars skills aren't super portable to other industries. I could see some market for his skills in more general robotics, though.
You are saying it like having just 4 weeks of paid holidays is a great achievement.
I don’t want to disillude you, but when I was very, very junior in EU 5-6 weeks were taken for granted from the first day of work, and in one case I had 7 weeks. Now I an not a permanent anymore, I don’t have any paid holidays whatsoever and I’m much, much happier.
Also, people who change jobs every two years can get unpaid six-month vacations every two years. The idea that the benefit of working at a company for a long time is that you can not work is terribly amusing to me.
trying to clearly define what exactly are ideas owned by the employer has to fail on principle. especially when you consider that even a new grad is being hired with the expectation that they are bringing ideas and techniques to bear that they developed someplace else.