At this particular software company I was brought on to manage the technical team and the technical side of the operations. The marketing, sales, administration, and negotiations with major companies were all on the non-technical side. The people who had founded the company had originally been technical people, and had come up with the idea for the product (or service), but the management that had taken over was all on the non-technical and marketing side.
These people had a very interesting idea for security.
The thing was, that I, being in computer virus research, knew, simply from the description of what they promised to do, how they had to do it. So I had a pretty good idea, not necessarily of the specific programming, but at least of the concept that they were trying to keep a secret from everybody else. They had me sign a non-disclosure agreement that said that I couldn't disclose to anyone else anything that I learned from the company. But, the thing was, that in terms of their technology, I didn't actually learn anything from the company: I already knew what they were doing when I came on board. The only thing that I actually learned from the company itself, was that the company management were a bunch of idiots.
One of the jobs that they had me doing was recruiting on the technical side. Again, because I worked in the field of virus research, and was well familiar with, at least in conceptual terms, what they were doing, I knew exactly who they needed to hire. However, by the time they decided that they *did* want me to approach people and start hiring, they had changed their non-disclosure agreement. The new non-disclosure agreement was incredibly draconian, and said that they could never again tell anyone else, outside the company, what the technology actually did. Since these people were experts in their fields, and since they had spent many years becoming experts, absolutely nobody wanted to come and work with this company, since, if they left, they would have to start all over again from scratch, rather than relying on the knowledge and experience that they had spent years acquiring. As I said, the company management were a bunch of idiots.
Previous: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2024/06/mgg-528-hwyd-infected.html
Introduction and ToC: https://fibrecookery.blogspot.com/2023/10/mgg-introduction.html
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