There's some very good discussion about IP rights in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

This is a great thread on the details of how this works https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

I did find this thread interesting and informative about the matter, tho it is a little dated.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

I really don't think this is the case.

Check out the top comment from @grellas here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

At the end, he mentions that general statements never apply to everybody, and unique situations vary. Additionally, in California the law protects moreso than other states.

FWIW, found this useful thread 2011 HN thread about the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

Though it's not just about trying to grab rights. Here's a blog post the founder last year, which describes in detail what he was doing from 2016 to June 2017:

https://blog.usejournal.com/how-we-made-1m-in-3-months-the-s...

He sounds like a hard worker and seems to have been at enough places (Facebook and Uber) to know not to mix hobby with work. But it sounds like he really hustled over the year to the point of his startup being a second job. He doesn't say anything more about Tesla, but I guess I'm assuming his startup passion couldn't have been a total secret. And despite his likely well-paid role at Tesla, they seemed to have tolerated his work-life balance to the point that he got to pick the time of quitting.

Yes, I agree that's the way things should be, that companies don't have any influence what you do once you've put in your 40/week. But that doesn't seem to be the status quo in tech, especially at highly ambitious companies like Tesla

Some good discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

Bottom line is that at least in California, employees theoretically have the right to IP developed in their own time on their own hardware, but in practice, there are numerous caveats, and litigation can be extremely risky.

One of the caveats is that the invention should not overlap with a company's "existing or anticipated line of business", and with the FAANGs being such behemoths, that can cover almost any form of software development.

Depends greatly on what state you are in, and the potential level of competition that you pose. If you just happen to be in the same industry, and are in California, you're probably fine. If you're in a different state maybe not so much.

Here's a thread to checkout: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

Google releases lots of projects like this, and yes many software developer contracts hand over all IP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056 (discussion is good but original link is dead).