Louis Del Giudice
Appearances
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
Because a trade secret will be the only way to stop somebody if you really think they're taking something that's proprietary to your company someplace else. Because a non-compete's not going to really be in play.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
He knows nothing about what's going on. He gets a slice of paper that's, you know, this emergency order on top of his desk that says, we need you to act now and we need you to stop somebody from getting a job, right? That's a pretty tall order to ask a judge to do. And the judge looks at it and says, Thomas's English muffins. Oh, the nooks and crannies.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
Right after he got off the phone with HR when they said, hey, we heard the announcement from Hostess, all of a sudden three flash drives ends up getting plugged into the laptop.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
I was practicing for my new job. I had to copy stuff onto a flash drive and take it off the flash drive and put it back on the flash. He's got, you know, you figure he's in his late 50s. He's not good with technology. But yes, so the court found that a little bit unbelievable that he was practicing.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
There's not a lot of... confusion or new law that was made. It's just, everything's really black and white.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
After the fact that said, you go anywhere near the baking industry, you have to tell Thomas's that you're going to be employed there. And which means Thomas's now would have the right to go to court and get some subpoenas and ask questions of the new employer. And what is he going to do? Like, what is this poor guy? If you want to take his side of the story, what is this poor guy supposed to do?
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
Does now he have a set of handcuffs on? He has to continue to work and can't go anywhere else, which is essentially what happened to him. No one's going to touch that guy now with a 10-foot pole.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
You know what one of the best kept trade secrets is? And everybody thinks Coke. And I'm like, well, Thomas's English muffins, which we've all grown up on, there's only 10 people in the world that know how to make a Thomas's English muffin. And people go, what?
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
Executive officer. He's in charge of the entire West Coast United States. And he's privy to all this information, all the recipe books and all of this other financial information and efficiencies. He has to sign a nondisclosure agreement, but that nondisclosure agreement is only while he's employed.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
He had said that they had done some cost cutting and some head cutting, so that sort of left a bad taste in his mouth. It sounded like from the one email that's attached to the complaint that maybe he had a little bit of friction with his manager, you know, the guy above him.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
He's just like, you know, there's a line that literally says, you know, you and I may not have always seen eye to eye, but we've always known what was best for the company. So when you read that, you know, that's a polite way of saying, you and I used to fight a lot.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
So now he's sitting all through Q4, at his role with Thomas's, getting all the Q4 information, all the look forward information for the next year, all the financials, on top of all the other knowledge he had.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
Oh, I need COBRA, meaning like that's code word for like I'm going to retire almost, right? But then Hostess puts out a press release. They find out from a Hostess press release that he's going to work in the next two days for Hostess. And Bimbo's like, oh shit. We've got this 75-year-old plus secret of how to bake Thomas' English muffins. It's a half a billion dollar product, and he knows it.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
No, no, you weren't retiring. You were going to the hated competitor.
Revisionist History
Nooks & Crannies
He got to a certain point where he knew too much, and now he's iced out.