A somewhat stereotypical and weird interaction I have now seen several time with several people:
Them: "I and my collaborators like your project/idea/code, could you privately share all details with us please?"
Me: "Ok, that might work, but can you tell me a bit more about what you want to do with it?"
Them: "No way, you need to sign a non-disclosure-agreement with us first".
😱 😱 😱 😱 😱
Anyone else...?
Redish Lab
in reply to franco_vazza • • •This is classic corporate responses to academia.
I once was visiting London for a conference, mentioned this to a former student who was (at the time) working at DeepMind (I think it was part of Google then, but don't remember). He suggested I give a talk, and I said sure. They wanted me to I sign an NDA as "standard practice when someone visits DeepMind".
I told them I do not sign NDA's on principle. (I don't believe they are ethical. Also, I'm terrible at keeping secrets. :) I told them that I was on the outside and that anything they told me was public. They said "then you can't meet our people". I told them that was their loss not mine.
PS. The eventual outcome was that they did have me give the talk. I met lots of great people and we had great conversations about both the work I do and what they were working on. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. No, I did not sign an NDA.