I'd guess a lot of people would have their own special stories to tell

I know of a similar case, the employee in question had to go through a similar process of questioning and audits just because they switched from FAANG A to B and somehow their manager came to know about it. After that incident, many members left the team for other companies; they’ve been careful to not update their LinkedIn page with the actual company that they’re working for. When asked, they often said that they were working for a small time firm, and declined to name which one it was. As for their manager, they often claimed that they were taking a career break or would be pursuing higher education.

That sounds awful. I'm guessing Bob had signed some kind of employment agreement that included a clause about not being involved in other employees leaving? When I was trying to help draft a fair (startup) employment agreement document, I tried to ask HN about some of the clauses I'd seen (including one like might've bit Bob), but the post got zero traction. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26016445

I took the Tim Leary approach. I’m so happy I don’t have to deal with the crap Bob or Simone deals with.

Big tech or otherwise, non-solicits are no joke. Be aware of them, and their enforcement in your jurisdiction.

> AAaaand, Bob is never to disclose anything about this, publicly, ever. That kind of provision is usually unenforcable if not illegal. (Bob speaking of it would probably risk attracting meritless lawsuit, but frankly meritless lawsuits are a fact of life and us comfortable tech folks ought to be willing to brave them for the sake of society)

I've observed this scenario occur frequently. The lesson I've learned is to remain silent until your new job in the new company stabilizes, and then, after some time, share the news with the world. This gives you 2 things 1. Time to acclimate to a new company. If things don't go as planned, there's always mostly the option to boomerang. 2. The likelihood of your previous employer imparting a 'lesson' significantly decreases.

If this was in CA, since 2022 non disclosure agreements that restrict employees from disclosing mistreatment in the workplace are illegal. This applies retroactively.

OMG a VC in Venice. Do you have an actual office there? I'm jealous. Venice was the original Silicon Valley. Aldus Manutius's print shop is an example of Venetian high tech. A good proportion of Europe's books were printed in Venice in the early 1500s.