Is there some sort of Code of Honor among Innovative Tech Software Engineers?
I have a background in making innovative games for mostly entertainment. Like the startup scene of the Game Industry. I made 2 games. There if someone would duplicate someone's idea they'd get roasted by the community.
Is there something like this in the Tech Software Industry as well? Not just with Big Tech, but Tech startups in general
The adage from the Indie Game Industry that I was thought was to be as public with your idea as possible most people don't care. And I've always been.
But with the Tech Industry it seems to me like people can just copy every company and there's no rules at all. Like in the Game Industry the Big "Game" companies can't just copy your innovative game, since it's usually a thing of it's own, not necessarily solving business problems smarter/ better. And also they usually have this big triple A title that they just make new iterations of like Call of Duty 1, 2, 3 etc. Not being able to take too much risks.
But in the Tech Industry the Big "Tech" companies can copy your things and it seems like they intend to "Eat" most startups to protect their own market share. There doesn't to be much honor involved or rules that prevent this.
@Alex, @Rahul
Is there some sort of Code of Honor among Innovative Tech Software Engineers?
Discussion
(5 comments)- 3
4 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroWell, I generally try to be a good person, but I can't say the same about all other software engineers at Big Tech 😅
When it comes to copying ideas, that's not a call for software engineers to make at Big Tech. The decision comes down from executives.
In Meta's case, Mark Zuckerberg is extremely aggressive and top-down about copying ideas. When Stories were taking off in Snapchat, Mark commanded every app (Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp) to put it in. Instagram and WhatsApp leadership were actually very unhappy about that, but they still had to do it.
- 04 months agoMid-Level Software Engineer [OP]Some University
Besides Big Tech I meant more general among Tech Startups, like Y-Combinator Startups and other Tech Startups.
- 14 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
Tech companies of all shapes/sizes and individual software engineers steal ideas from each other all the time 😬. It makes sense in an industry where copy-pasting is part of the culture and the cost of duplication is low due to the material being digital.
My general advice is to not worry too much about ideas getting taken while doing your best to follow a personal honor code and not blatantly. When it comes to success with software, it's more in the execution and less in the idea itself.
- 14 months agoEng @ Taro
Every time I think I've had a novel idea for a side project, I usually find out there's a company already doing something similar. Ideas are cheap. It's all about execution.
It's true that more mature companies have the resources to build out a similar product, but they also have disadvantages. They will move slower because there are more levels of approval that decisions have to move through before a new product/feature can be built.
A smaller company can just move faster. They might not have the most polished product, but they can get it out the door faster and capture the market share, possibly creating network effects making it difficult for existing users to move off.
- 14 months agoTech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
I believe Kevin Systrom of Instagram said something along the lines of "Every idea is a derivative of another idea, and it's fair game to keep improving ideas." He said this in the context of IG copying stories from Snapchat and actually doing it better.
There's merit to what he's saying. Nothing is truly original, and you should not rely on your brilliant idea to be the reason you win. Software has a rapid pace of innovation because that source code is so easily shared, modified, and improved.
To your point about "code of ethics", there is a judgment that has to be made about what is a ripoff vs something which is adding unique value. Within the YC community, the startups or VCs that blatantly copied or stole ideas were quickly found out and word would spread not to do business with them. This will usually kill any startup.
