[orijing]

> I was still working full time at Powerset on July 1, 2008

I'm curious how this works normally. He was employed full time at PowerSet nine months after he started working "full time" on Github. What did Powerset think of his devoting his time and energy to Github? What is the industry norm? What about the IP issues that complicate the matter? Couldn't Powerset have claimed ownership over Github since he was a salaried employee?

[btilly]

PowerSet is in California.

California has fairly strong protection for employee's intellectual property in stuff they do on their own time that is not relevant to their employer's business. This protection is, admittedly, more effective if you're employed by a small company with a focused business than if you're employed by a major corporation that does a bit of everything. But github doesn't sound much like a natural language search engine, so I doubt there were any IP issues to worry about.

See http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab... for the relevant statute.

[ajays]

I think this single piece of legislation has done more for California's startup scene than anything else.