It wasn't lost on me when I was working on a contract for a very large secretive tech company that if I leaked info that I had it would affect the share price.
I didn't, but it made me realise how improbable it is that these companies actually manage to keep stuff so secret.
I bet there are hundreds of people reading HN right now who are keeping quiet about stuff that would be explosive if made public. Quite impressive really.
It's not really much different from loads of the HN crowd having eye-watering access to production systems. It's just part of the job, and there are a lot of people whose lives and families depend on you not fucking it up, and the job pays well enough to not worry about going hungry or freezing to death in the snow. Yes, of course, of course, in day-to-day practice simply having integrity is the absolute end of the story, but even to the paranoid risk analysts upstairs it's not that outrageous to trust people who already have a good life and have no reason to risk going to federal prison just for an earlier retirement.
In a previous lifetime I worked for a company that had a Lucasfilm merchandising license for Star Wars: Episode 1.
It was made precisely clear what the damages would be if script details leaked out prematurely, and they would be enumerated in dollars and the figure was incredibly large.
Multiple-commas large. At least two, possibly 3.
The project team toiled for nearly a year behind a locked door, we couldn't discuss a single piece of the project with them until the premiere date.
If you're interested in seeing what happens when you do leak movie details (or in this case, the full movie) -- take a look at William Morarity, who leaked The Revenant, 6 days ahead of it's theatrical release.
I didn't, but it made me realise how improbable it is that these companies actually manage to keep stuff so secret.
I bet there are hundreds of people reading HN right now who are keeping quiet about stuff that would be explosive if made public. Quite impressive really.