New ask Hacker News story: Help- my company wants to do my side project in house

Help- my company wants to do my side project in house
3 by silvyas | 2 comments on Hacker News.
I’ve been working on a side project and recently shared it with colleagues at work. They loved it and spread it around the company all the way up to the VP. The VP is very excited and wants me to help prepare a pitch to the CEO about doing this in-house. I feel like this is messy and I want to keep my side project separate from work. For both personal (we don’t need more competitors) and legal (plausible deniability) reasons. They’ve been nice and haven’t asked for the code base or anything, so I’m not sure how to handle this. This VP is directly responsible for my future promotions at the company. How do I say no respectfully? Am I thinking about this the right way? (Btw I’ve been to a lawyer and they were pretty vague. No I haven’t worked on company equipment and always in my spare time. Live in CA so non-compete/company ownership law is not enforceable as I gather. Big tech company.)

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