Two people can keep a secret if one of them doesn’t know what it is.
Intellectual property is a huge business in Silicon Valley, creating a breeding ground for attorneys, paper work and billable hours.
Keeping secrets may be costly, yet…revealing secrets can be astronomical.
Millions of dollars trade hands every year in this Valley — legally and illegally — to obtain or protect intellectual secrets.
When it comes to the 49ers, our Council doesn’t respect its business secrets. The Council wants the 49ers proprietary information in their hands — where it could be made public. Once information arrives at City Hall, it historically can’t be protected from becoming public.
A recent example of this was the unveiling of details on the 2018 Taylor Swift concerts.
If you were a promoter, would you book any venue where the details would be revealed to your competition? Not in a hundred years!
The Santa Clara City Council and Mayor Gillmor have been hounding the 49ers to stop hiding their secrets and bring all their contact details to City Hall to be examined.
The 49ers aren’t stupid. Their football may be a little suspect, but as business operators, they excel. They are not going to make their private information public.
They have invited City officials to visit the stadium anytime to review any and all documents. There, they are protected by confidentiality agreements.
At City Hall, information might as well be public and open to competitors.
The 49ers have invested huge dollars in protecting their intellectual property. Their contracts are proprietary, confidential and, like all competitive businesses, secret.
Even public companies are judicious in protecting their trade secrets and intellectual property. You don’t see that kind of information in a company prospectus or annual report.
But our City politics are different. Since our Council doesn’t respect the 49ers, they certainly aren’t going to respect their trade secrets.
With that in mind, you would almost think this Council wants the 49ers to fail, breach their contract, and give up their highly protected business secrets.
Mayor Gillmor was appointed right before her highly touted 2016 stadium audit. The one that was going to peel off the wrappings of the 49er’s nefarious money laundering, campaign donations and a host of other despicable activities which she charged.
All that was uncovered of interest was the million dollars the City owed the 49ers for over-billing them a year on parking after they stopped using City property.
Despite our City Manager’s public statement as to how our City pays its bills timely, our City hasn’t paid a dime on this bill. In fact, the Mayor is using taxpayers’ money in a lawsuit, challenging the million dollars owed the 49ers.
No, we aren’t kidding.
Think about it. Would you entrust your confidential business secrets with this Council?
Only if you were contemplating economic suicide!
