Sounds like Toptal has some good employment agreements. One restriction keeping people from making, side hustles, etc. are the onerous rules that larger tech companies place on their employees. There are agreements around non-competition, intellectual property ownership, conflict of interest, and other little gotchas. These can be very broad since modern tech companies sprawl across a lot of industries, so even if your specific role is far from the side hustle you want to do, your company might be quite close to it and therefore that is a conflict of interest.
I've actually had the situation where I was blocked from getting paid for tutoring on Codementor.io because it was "getting paid on the side to use skills and know-how that is part of his job".
Of course, this probably doesn't apply for things like bike shops or other types of maker activities that aren't technical. It also probably doesn't apply for pro bono things like open-source contributions.
[EDIT]: added "probably doesn't apply" since it seems like in some cases it can cause problems.
I worked for a Fortune 100 company whose backbone was intellectual property (involved in 100,000+ products) and as you might imagine, their view of what constituted "intellectual property" and any reasonable human being's view were quite different.
During onboarding someone asked about building a table and selling the plans and were told that "they would definitely need to talk to legal".
I've run in to places that wanted to pull "all your intellectual property belong to us", but I don't really think they really wanted this. I think they just want the right of first refusal. If I developed something illegal, then said "well... my employer owns it technically because I did this during working hours" they definitely would try to wriggle out of that IP.
Half the reason for these agreements is because they generally do want all your intellectual property: it means that there's less risk of one of their entrepreneurial employees quitting and starting a competitor, even in an ostensibly unrelated sector.
"Employee agrees that any and all intellectual properties, including, but not limited to, all ideas, concepts, themes, inventions, designs, improvements and discoveries conceived, developed or written by Employee, either individually or jointly in collaboration with others during the term of this Agreement, shall belong to and be the sole and exclusive property of the Company."
That's pretty broad. This doesn't even say "relating to your job", just "intellectual properties... conceived, developed or written by Employee... during the term of this Agreement".
I started working a company with this kind of attitude. I had them not only adjust the contract to only protect their existing IP from theft by me, but also had the General Manager sign a letter stating I was able to continue working on my side business.
Most businesses need you more than you need them. Choose wisely and negotiate.
Is this really a thing in the U.S.? Genuinely curious as I've worked for a major telecom company in Europe, and the the IP ownership belonged to the company only for stuff done during work hours and/or done using company's equipment.
All companies I have worked for over a certain size have come with non-negotiable [1] IP assignment agreements that effectively said the company owns everything you do, at work or at home, on work equipment or on personal equipment. It’s universal as far as I’ve seen.
1: Yes, I have tried the cute “cross out that section yourself and initial it” trick. The response from legal was a stern, unambiguous “Sign it unmodified or GTFO!”
I've actually had the situation where I was blocked from getting paid for tutoring on Codementor.io because it was "getting paid on the side to use skills and know-how that is part of his job".
Of course, this probably doesn't apply for things like bike shops or other types of maker activities that aren't technical. It also probably doesn't apply for pro bono things like open-source contributions.
[EDIT]: added "probably doesn't apply" since it seems like in some cases it can cause problems.