If you work for a BigCo, you're generally not allowed to do a "side thing", or at least they claim ownership and reserve the right to sue you over it if you are caught doing it. I know this isn't the case for every state, but it's still the case in NY; it's one of the (many) reasons I left Apple actually.

I don't think my current gig is so bad about that, but ironically I feel less of a compulsion to leave my current gig and start my own thing because I actually like this job.

Yup, true facts.

Not in California though. One of the (many) reasons we live here.

It's also arguably one of the reasons that the innovation ecosystem that is here exists, and persists.

Yeah, I should write to a politician, might be an easy win for them to do that in NYC, modeled after California's laws.

For reasons that I've never fully understood, I have had a strong distaste towards California my entire life, else I would have moved there by now. Probably my inner hipster my necessity to feel like I'm doing things different.