I'm surprised there's no attempt to reconcile the notions of: secrecy, competitive advantages and the corporate prime directive (to profit), with information sharing like in the Semi Conductor Fab example.
I'm definitely not coming down on the other side of "pay-it-forward" and Steve seems to invoke the "rising tide lifts all boats" idea with the Finland dinner story, but surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.
> surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.
Surely. And yet, you can't build something like Silicon Valley by erring on the side of not spilling the company beans. You can only do it by sharing information, which is also a moral imperative.
Fortunately, I've generally steered clear of that conflict myself, largely by having the good fortune to work for Silicon Valley companies that absorbed that ethic of openness. I've sometimes experienced that conflict, and in those cases I've usually kept mum about things that could have helped our competitors. Some of those things I still haven't talked about to this day, because keeping my word is very important to me. But I respect the decisions of other people who've chosen the opposite; I understand their reasoning, and it makes sense.
Comments
I'm surprised there's no attempt to reconcile the notions of: secrecy, competitive advantages and the corporate prime directive (to profit), with information sharing like in the Semi Conductor Fab example.
I'm definitely not coming down on the other side of "pay-it-forward" and Steve seems to invoke the "rising tide lifts all boats" idea with the Finland dinner story, but surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.
> surely there's a moral imperative not to spill the company beans.
Surely. And yet, you can't build something like Silicon Valley by erring on the side of not spilling the company beans. You can only do it by sharing information, which is also a moral imperative.
Fortunately, I've generally steered clear of that conflict myself, largely by having the good fortune to work for Silicon Valley companies that absorbed that ethic of openness. I've sometimes experienced that conflict, and in those cases I've usually kept mum about things that could have helped our competitors. Some of those things I still haven't talked about to this day, because keeping my word is very important to me. But I respect the decisions of other people who've chosen the opposite; I understand their reasoning, and it makes sense.