I thought about writing a post on NDAs, but luckily the internets have already done it for me.
Read these:
- NDAs are unnecessary because ideas are worthless — Less Everything Blog
It’s worthless because ideas in general are worthless. Anyone can have a good idea, and they do. What has value is execution. The ability to take an idea and transform it into something real, something people love, something someone will pay for.
- Why Most VC’s Don’t Sign NDAs
In 20 years of high tech (as an entrepreneur, angel investor, and VC), I’ve never been involved in a situation where an NDA is enforced except in an M&A context. It’s simply a waste of paper and time for anything but M&A.
- Rands In Repose: FriendDA
But I want Phil to know that what I want to chat about is more than our average conversation. I want slightly more than a smidge of ceremony before I spill the beans about my bright idea and I call this ceremony the FriendDA. The FriendDA is a non-binding, warm blanket agreement that offers absolutely no legal protection.
- Sacred Cow Dung: MYTH: NDAs are a Good Idea
What is the entrepreneur really saying when requesting that executed NDA? [&hellpi;] b) “What I am about to reveal to you is so earth-shattering that it is a distinct possibility that you will drop everything in your life and try to steal my idea and do it without me.”
and
“Let me explain it this way — Even if you were to go down to the corner of Broad and Wall Street — ground zero for the financial markets — and randomly pass out 1000 copies of your business plan, no one will ever execute that plan without you — no matter how great it is.”
- Why Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) Are Useless | Misanthropy Today
The judge looks at it. “So you’re telling me that the founders of Google discussed search engines with other search engine companies before launching the biggest search engine in the world? I will not believe it!” This judge is very sarcastic.
I’ll still sign them from time to time, but my feelings about it are well covered in the articles above.
I have plenty of ideas (and a hundred or so domain names to match) that I want to pursue of my own. I’ll be lucky if I even get to start on half of them before time runs out, they become obsolete, and replaced by new ideas that pop up.
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Geof F. Morris adds this Comment:
Call me weird, but if I don’t have the chops or the time to knock an idea out, I just put it into the wild and let it go.
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:58 am
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[...] Alex, I’ve had a post on NDAs ready to draft up any day now. But many people have said it better than I could: NDAs are, in most [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:50 am
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March 2nd, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Loretta adds this Comment:
Very interesting – I’d never heard this point of view before, so I guess that makes me a bit on the ‘green’ side, too, eh?
Did you know that some conferences have you sign NDA’s before they begin? I thought that was rather interesting….in a rotten kind of way…
March 4th, 2010 at 9:45 am