An employee's side business overlaps with the company's business plan
2026NowDeadline · Decision window: 16 days until the new work agreement is signed
Realistic synthesis
The people, events, figures, and technology in this matter are stated assumptions. They are not to be treated as information about real individuals or as observed events. Background documents are separate sources, and symbolic interpretations are recorded as discovery paths.
The question to decide
An employee created work on their own time and equipment, but the techniques learned at the company and part of the customer base overlap. The company's expansion plans are also not yet fixed. How far should the company involve itself: recognizing the side business's independence, proposing a joint venture, or temporarily restricting the overlapping activities?
Who decidesThe peer review council of a small design firm
What the AI judgments chose
Reading the judgment record…
The options
The order shown is not a ranking of preference.
The situation as it stands
The synthetic employee created works in personal time with personal equipment, but the skills learned at the company and some of the customer base overlap. Decision deadline: 16 days until a new employment agreement is signed.
2026 fictional premise · An employee's side work overlaps with the company's next business. The people, organizations, figures, and events are a synthetic premise constructed for comparison.
- Premise 1The synthetic employee created works in personal time with personal equipment, but the skills learned at the company and some of the customer base overlap.
- Premise 2The company is reviewing the same field, but there is no finalized business and no assignment for that employee.
- Premise 3A standard is needed that can also apply to other employees, and interpreting the current contract requires separate verification.
Where it holdsBoundaries for shared resources, customer contact, and outside activity
What is still unknown
- Unknown 1The company resources and customer information actually used
- Unknown 2The company's intent and timing for starting the new business
- Unknown 3A disclosed standard that can also apply to other employees
Signals to decide again
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「the company resources and customer information actually used」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「the company's intent and timing for starting the new business」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
- Decide what observation, owner, and confirmation window can verify 「a disclosed standard that can also apply to other employees」, and re-judge if the new confirmation changes the tradeoff among the options.
Where the paths partNot answers — paths that part from the same starting point
The company dropped the business it had been reviewing, but the outside work began to attract customer interest.
A new customer asked to bundle the individual work and company deliveries into a single contract.
Material and rootsThe frame, the values and the background documents
Where is the continuity of a company rooted once its members, customers, and purpose have changed?
An exploratory perspective chosen by the creator. Does not claim supernatural validity or the superiority of any particular option.The benefits and costs of the options accrue to different stakeholders. Which loss to accept remains undecided.
A subject for the decision-maker to argue over; the materials carry no conclusion of their own.- OECD · SMEs and entrepreneurship accessed 2026-09-08
- ICA · Cooperative identity, values and principles accessed 2026-09-08
The record of this question
- Question
FSP-VENTURE-34· version 1.4.0- Content identity, SHA-256
d1c6f9829668c08b6b30385fabe5068bf4ca358a32710d49573107a08c11e147- Input files
- Question input JSON · What followed, JSON