[HN Gopher] The case for banning non-competes
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The case for banning non-competes
Author : jseliger
Score : 410 points
Date : 2021-07-16 14:31 UTC (8 hours ago)
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| RikNieu wrote:
| I believe non-competes and claiming the IP of what employees do
| in their own time is ridiculous and way out of line. Employers do
| not own the people who work for them.
| lupire wrote:
| No one owns anyone. IP assignment is contractual agreement in
| exchange for money. Just remember that when imputing your
| hourly pay and passive income opportunity.
| closeparen wrote:
| This is why it's a little ridiculous to think there could be a
| "tech hub" outside California. Sure maybe you have a lot of tech
| jobs in the same place, but that is of no consequence to the
| people who work them, since they're all in binding non competes.
| ghaff wrote:
| The idea that everyone who isn't in California is subject to
| draconian non-competes is California exceptionalism nonsense.
| lostcolony wrote:
| This is a bit out of date, but -
| https://www.beckreedriden.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2019/01/Non...
|
| There are three states where non competes are essentially not
| permitted. California, Oklahoma, and North Dakota.
|
| Now, certainly, it's up to the company whether or not it
| imposes a non-compete, and to what it covers/applies to. It
| might be that you never took a job with one. But I've been
| subject to them at every place I've worked outside of
| California. While they haven't had any particularly large
| effect on me, I've definitely had to go back and read the
| fine print when considering a job change once or twice (not
| to mention when it came to hiring past colleagues).
| ghaff wrote:
| I've never had one in LA, MA, or NH except for one time
| when EMC (who was one of the big players who resisted the
| non-compete changes that MA finally put in place) acquired
| the company I was at. The non-compete was reasonably narrow
| in scope--couldn't take a senior exec position at a storage
| vendor--but they were also very clear this wasn't
| negotiable.
|
| But I've certainly been aware of non-compete enforcement by
| the big companies in a certain category of consultants that
| basically meant anyone leaving couldn't do the same type of
| job anywhere for a couple years. My point though is that
| it's hardly universal even if not rare.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Certainly; I don't think anyone is claiming they're
| universal. Just that enough players do it that it's a
| concern; you can't easily name and shame the companies
| that do have them, as an employee, because most companies
| do. And that they're net negatives, and shouldn't be
| legal (at least, not in the form many are in).
| MattGaiser wrote:
| The absurd part of non-competes is that they want a guarantee of
| exclusivity on you without a guarantee of paying you for that
| period of exclusivity.
| lsllc wrote:
| Related article/discussion on Biden's recent executive order on
| non-competes:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27855855
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I think the issue with non competes is that it was taken from the
| world of highly paid executives and some companies tried (
| https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet... )
| to apply those to rank and file employees. Needless to say, that
| sort of non-compete should be outright banned.
|
| I do have some mixed feelings about them the higher you go in the
| company hierarchy.
| johnrbent wrote:
| > The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies. If companies weren't able to secure
| those protections, they'd need to pay lower salaries, and we'd
| all be worse off.
|
| Anyone else confused by this statement? How do you make the leap
| from non-competes to higher salaries, or conversely, that a ban
| on non-competes would result in lower salaries?
|
| I mean I think I can see the author's intent (that the company
| would need to divert funds from wages to somewhere else to
| protect their IP), but it seems like the rest of the article
| disagrees; namely, linking the Californian ban on NCAs to the
| innovative success in that state (and high salaries) would
| suggest that banning NCAs might foster _higher_ wages.
| Intuitively, it feels like, in absence of a non-compete, a higher
| salary is the biggest deterrent to losing trade-secrets to other
| companies via poaching.
| daveFNbuck wrote:
| I think the idea is that the non-compete increases your value
| to the company, and that your salary is strongly tied to your
| value to the company. Both of those are pretty questionable.
| LightG wrote:
| Cartman Voice: "Whatever! I compete with whoever I want!".
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpF9O0R873I
| legulere wrote:
| There are a lot of things you could do to let the labour market
| behave more like a free market, like for instance mandatory wage
| ranges on job postings.
|
| The problem is that a lot of people in power would lose from this
| and manage to prevent it from happening.
| blhack wrote:
| Somebody downthread made what I thought was a joke about Jimmy
| John's requiring employees to sign non compete agreements.
|
| Apparently it wasn't a joke: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-
| jimmyjohns-settlement-idU...
|
| >The Jimmy John's agreement prohibited employees during their
| employment and for two years afterward from working at any other
| business that sells "submarine, hero-type, deli-style, pita,
| and/or wrapped or rolled sandwiches" within 2 miles of any Jimmy
| John's shop in the United States
|
| This is absolutely _absurd_. I worked on JJ 's when I was in
| college. I honestly had no idea that this was a thing.
|
| These companies know that these contracts are almost certainly
| unenforceable, but they also know that their employees won't have
| the money to fight them. No acceptable.
| mrweasel wrote:
| You don't exactly need to ban them, but the employees should be
| compensated during the non-compete period and limit the lenght of
| the non-compete contract.
|
| In Denmark my employeer can't make non-compete contract for more
| that 12 month, during which I'm entitled to 60% of my salery.
| It's also only valid within the same field. That is: You can't
| jump from Microsoft, developing Windows, to Apple and work on
| macOS, but you can go to Twitter.
| masklinn wrote:
| > In Denmark my employeer can't make non-compete contract for
| more that 12 month, during which I'm entitled to 60% of my
| salery. It's also only valid within the same field. That is:
| You can't jump from Microsoft, developing Windows, to Apple and
| work on macOS
|
| You probably can tho, unless they're justifying that you're
| privy to some super important stuff which endangers the company
| if you go work for Apple. Which... seems like something you'd
| have a hard time convincing the labour court of.
| mrweasel wrote:
| You're correct, you cannot enforce a non-compete on your
| average engineer, it has to be some specialist function.
| matsemann wrote:
| In Norway it's 100% pay up to some relative high amount. And
| the non-compete has to be very specifically towards me and my
| role at the company, not some generic "we do a little bit of x,
| y and z, therefore everything is considered a competitor".
|
| Actually my union, Tekna, was a big player in getting the laws
| much better in 2016. Unions work, and can be useful even for us
| techies even if in high demand.
| haraball wrote:
| Though if you get a new job during the period the non-compete
| is valid, the amount can be reduced down to 50%, depending on
| your income. The company also can't enforce the non-compete
| if they fire you. The Norwegian way of handling this is good,
| I think.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| This sounds good in theory, and I was once presented with a job
| opportunity with something similar to this. Except much of the
| compensation was not in salary. So while salary goes down 60%,
| total comp goes down way more -- all the non-salary components
| goes to zero.
| slymon99 wrote:
| This is definitely a problem, especially because industries
| who frequently utilize the paid non-compete (e.g. finance)
| often have a significant percent of comp from non-salary
| (bonuses etc).
|
| But you could fix this with craftier legislation instead of
| banning non-competes, e.g. maybe you have to pay the persons
| last years total compensation instead of just their salary
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| EDIT: I have completely went off on the wrong thought path. As
| noted, despite reading the article and comments, somehow my mind
| got latched onto NDAs instead of NCAs. Sorry.
|
| ----
|
| I will be the contrarian.
|
| For those who insist on _no NDA_ , what prevents ex-employees
| from spilling secrets to be hired at a competitor?
|
| I understand the concerns with NDAs. I was under one which
| limited my work in a radius, and within a very broad field.
| Imagine having to leave the country to practice in my field. The
| owner threatened me when I left (with tiny droplets of spittle on
| my face from his screaming). This kind of NDA is horrible.
|
| That said, NDAs are there to protect a company from ex-employees
| sharing competitive knowledge about a product or service,
| damaging or even shuttering a the company.
|
| I will ask you to sign an NDA if you want to work for me. You are
| not going to directly compete against me in a specific sub-
| industry, you are not taking my clients, and you are not poaching
| my employees for a reasonable period. This NDA is presented
| _prior_ you taking the job. Not all NDAs are "out to get the
| little guy".
|
| Maybe NDAs need some precedent cases where overly broad NDAs are
| struck down.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Arguing for the status quo is not contrarian.
| Frost1x wrote:
| It's interesting how we celebrate that capitalism instills
| competition that leads to global improvement for everyone, yet
| we like to hand-pick the segments of capitalism where we want
| competition and the segments we don't want competition. An NDA
| is one case of this, as are non-compete agreements, and many
| behaviors within cartels, say when Apple et al conspired to not
| hire each others labor.
|
| Usually, this hand-picking is performed by those succeeding the
| most in the given system because they have resources and
| leverage to dictate such terms and force them on others, yet
| another anticompetitive behavior. The fact is that most people
| just celebrate capitalism when it benefits them and reject it
| when it doesn't.
|
| Personally, I think any such agreements should be illegal. If
| we had more labor unions where the labor force organized and
| created their own anticompetitive behaviors to counter balance
| the leverage of large capital holders, then I'd be far more
| sympathetic. Such is not the case and the labor force is on a
| near Darwinian level of competitiveness so I have no sympathy
| for any sort of anticompetitive behaviors from businesses.
|
| To be clear, I understand how this perspective blows up many
| business models, but it has also blown up the livelihoods of
| many of us in the labor force on this push to commoditize labor
| for the goodness of whatever. I say, why don't we commoditize
| these business secrets for the same unknown goodness? Why is it
| we keep picking and choosing who gets breaks on competition and
| who doesn't. Let the markets decide.
| [deleted]
| lupire wrote:
| the topic is NCA, not NDA.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| well... That was painful. :D
| lupire wrote:
| To be fair, the OP made the same mistake.
| neilwilson wrote:
| This is where the U.K's "try not to be a dick" approach to law
| wins out.
|
| A former employer has to show the court that they will suffer
| genuine damage if the clause is not enforced and even then the
| court won't enforce it unless it is reasonable. The case law on
| that is pretty tight.
|
| If you're setting up in direct competition and trying to poach
| clients and staff the courts will favour the former employer. If
| you're just moving to another job then courts will likely favour
| you.
|
| The courts recognise that there is an imbalance of power between
| employer and employer in the job market. Although each case turns
| on the specifics the English concept of reasonableness runs
| through its resolution.
| igorzx31 wrote:
| Garden leave vs non-competes are very different.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Non-competes jumped the shark when Jimmy Johns started requiring
| their Sandwich Artists to sign them.
| rytis wrote:
| I'm in this pickle right now. It's a scare tactic. New employer
| would not take a bet, and that's understandable. Current employer
| responds with the most vague legalese possible to my straight up
| question "are you going to enforce?". The choices are: a) take a
| gamble against an entity that has so much more to fund their
| legal team than I will ever dream of or b) suck it up. Take a
| guess what most people pick, even if "most likely outcome" of
| enforcing non-compete is very slim. It's in UK btw.
| etothepii wrote:
| Have you checked if your legal fees might be covered on your
| home contents policy.
| rytis wrote:
| I do have legal coverage as part of home insurance package,
| however, it seem that it's only against direct "attack"
| towards me, and employment disputes aren't covered. Pretty
| useless tbh.
| ghaff wrote:
| I appreciate the gist of the article but IMO the CA/MA dichotomy
| (which is often mentioned--though MA significantly restricted
| non-competes a few years back) is facile.
|
| It's true that a lot of the new Internet/Web companies came out
| of California. And Apple is of course there as well.
|
| But the Route 128 companies mentioned in the article certainly
| traded employees, although in general employee tenures tended to
| be much longer than today. Data General, for example, was founded
| by a Digital engineer. Similarly there is a massive
| biotech/pharma cluster of companies in Kendall Square in
| Cambridge today.
| gibba999 wrote:
| The more nuanced take is that different IP and employment laws
| benefit different industries.
|
| Software benefits from no patents, limited-term copyrights, no
| NDAs, no non-competes, due to low cost-of-entry. Innovation is
| cheap but hard.
|
| Pharma benefits from strong IP, NDAs, non-competes, etc. due to
| high capital investment levels. Innovation is easy but
| expensive.
|
| Hardware varies.
| Quanttek wrote:
| I don't get the following quote:
|
| > The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies. If companies weren't able to secure
| those protections, they'd need to pay _lower_ salaries, and we'd
| all be worse off.
|
| If employers lack such "protections" (i.e. non-competes),
| wouldn't they need to pay a _higher_ salary, so that their
| workers are not poached by rival companies?
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| This is misinformation 101, state a detailed premise, tie it in
| with some cause and effect that sounds plausible, make no
| attempt to back up the synthesis.
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| There's so much wrong here.
|
| > The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies. If companies weren't able to secure
| those protections, they'd need to pay lower salaries, and we'd
| all be worse off.
|
| No. If companies couldn't coerce workers to stay with them
| against their will, then they would have to pay better and be
| better employers. And we would all be better off.
|
| > But suppose instead that innovation is difficult. Lukas Walton
| has a net worth of $22 billion because his grandfather founded
| Walmart. If he decided he really only needs $5 billion in life
| and is going to plow the other $17 billion into a massive R&D
| effort, how much innovation will he really generate?
|
| A huge amount. Plenty of people set up research institutes or new
| departments at universities that make giant leaps forward. See
| Paul Allen for example.
|
| > To a considerable extent, this hinges on poaching. Silicon
| Valley was a good place to grow Facebook because fast-growing
| Facebook could poach from older tech companies.
|
| I wish people would stop with this anti-labor language. Poaching?
| That's ridiculous. It starts by offering people a better place to
| work, with a better mission, better people, and more money.
| That's not "poaching".
|
| > And Silicon Valley is a good place to launch a startup today
| because you can poach from Facebook.
|
| That's funny. FB and other companies offer far more money than
| most startups can afford. That's not why the Valley is a good
| place to launch a startup.
|
| > One of the big, overarching problems of our time is that
| productivity growth has slowed down sharply from where it was
| during the post-WWII decades.
|
| The overarching problem of our time is that productivity no
| longer means higher salary and higher quality of life.
| Productivity keeps going up, but salaries stagnate. What's the
| incentive to be more productive?
|
| > In the early days of the computer industry, Silicon Valley was
| rivaled by the Route 128 corridor (this is a road through the
| Boston suburbs) in Massachusetts as a hub of innovation. But
| California won out decisively here, and many people think the
| lack of non-compete agreements in the Golden State is part of the
| reason.
|
| There's a lot of debate about this. And now we're running the
| decisive experiment! MA just basically killed off non-competes (1
| year limit, narrow scope both in terms of work and geography).
| Let's see if the biotech industry stays.
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| > A just basically killed off non-competes (1 year limit,
| narrow scope both in terms of work and geography).
|
| That hardly seems like killed-off. In my experience, this exact
| sort of thing has been what I have been able to get, AT BEST,
| companies that required non-competes to change to, and even
| THEN, they were hugely disruptive. It's one of the reasons that
| I have nearly three decades of experience and almost never any
| two companies in a row in the same vertical.
|
| This is categorically not killing off non-competes. It's barely
| even impacting them. It's just politically-correct "non-compete
| killing theater."
| ectopod wrote:
| >> The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies. If companies weren't able to secure
| those protections, they'd need to pay lower salaries, and we'd
| all be worse off.
|
| > No. If companies couldn't coerce workers to stay with them
| against their will, then they would have to pay better and be
| better employers. And we would all be better off.
|
| The author is presenting the standard business argument, i.e.
| trade secrets are good for business and society generally
| because they generate wealth, non-competes protect trade
| secrets, so without non-competes trade secrets would be
| revealed and business and society would be poorer, so everyone
| would be worse off. The author isn't agreeing with this pov
| (and neither do you or I), they want to ban non-competes.
| lyptt wrote:
| I had a non-compete at a previous employer that prevented me
| working in tech altogether for a year after quitting. Fortunately
| I managed to get out of that when they made me redundant. I doubt
| it'd stand up in court, but it's pretty shocking all the same.
| notananthem wrote:
| Noncompetes should be illegal. Competition is good. Noncompetes
| are only harmful.
| api wrote:
| Require companies to pay employees some percentage of their
| former salary (e.g. 20%) for the period of a non-compete,
| otherwise it is unenforceable.
|
| That would ensure that companies only bother to enforce non-
| competes when the stakes are high and it's serious, and prevent
| them from basically IP-trolling former employees by making such a
| thing unprofitable.
| b3morales wrote:
| I have a very hard time with anything less than 100%. You're
| talking about preventing people from using their main skills to
| put food on the table.
|
| And frankly, even 100% discounts the professional development
| that comes in the natural course of employment. You will have
| missed opportunities for skill advancement and networking.
|
| After 2 years not working because of the non-compete, how are
| interviews for the next position going to go? You'll be rusty
| at best. Side projects are not, in general, a fair substitute:
| what does an Amazon SRE do on hardware at home that compares to
| what's on the job? Even for an individual developer, there's a
| world of difference hacking on your own web app and working on
| a team with large numbers of actual customers.
| filoleg wrote:
| If that becomes the norm, attitudes towards it will change,
| because then you won't be perceived by hiring people as at a
| disadvantage, since everyone will be going through this.
|
| Of course, right now it sounds ridiculous, as the percentage
| of your current candidates with 1-2 year working gaps is a
| minority.
|
| The reason I believe this will work is because that's how it
| works in finance right now. 1.5-2 year long non-competes, you
| get paid full salary for those periods (minus the annual
| bonus). And you can make the same point, what are they gonna
| do in terms of personal projects? Kind of difficult to
| imagine someone trading hundreds of millions in some
| specialty equities for a hedge fund and then going back home
| for 2 years and doing the same kind of a "side project"
| there. Nothing they can do by themselves at home is
| comparable to what they could at the job. And yet, this is
| literally the norm now, and those people don't have any
| issues interviewing and getting jobs afterwards at competing
| finance shops.
| plank_time wrote:
| The fact that Silicon Valley thrives without non-competes proves
| that they are unnecessary. It's just a way for employers to put
| their claws in employees. If non-competes came with guaranteed
| 100% salary during the non-compete time, that would be more
| palatable.
| achenatx wrote:
| As a professional services company we have had a few people over
| the years shop their contract or try to go direct with the
| client.
|
| They essentially split our gross margin with the client. The
| client reduces their cost and the employee gets paid more.
|
| Our non-compete mainly is focused on not taking our clients.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've heard those called non-solicitation agreements which seem
| perfectly reasonable.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Had a fun one just happen to me in the last few days. I got
| contacted by an agent out of the blue.
|
| "Hey Sean we've got a role that you seem perfect for, just sign
| this NDA so we can talk." I look at the NDA and it includes a
| noncompete for the duration of the project + 12 months after. The
| nda is also not mutual so the noncompete and nondisclosure is
| only binding on me not the other party. In fact I don't even know
| who the other party is or what they do. Only if I sign this then
| for an undisclosed period of the project + 12 months _whether or
| not I get the job_ I can't compete with them whatever they do.
|
| I get back to the agent and say there's no way I can sign a
| noncompete until I know what it is I'm committing not to compete
| with.
|
| The guy spends several days trying various desperate negotiating
| tactics "I spoke to my boss and he says there really is no risk
| to you if you sign this, it's totally standard"... "I spoke with
| our CFO and you have to sign for us to proceed"....(That's great
| for your boss and CFO but I'm the one on the hook here if I sign,
| not them) "The noncompete really doesn't commit you to anything,
| but you have to sign..." (if it doesn't commit me to anything
| there's no downside to you removing it) ... "The client is so
| secretive and the project such a big deal we can't risk it
| leaking..." etc. At each point I just held firm and said there's
| no way I can sign a noncompete unless I know what I'm committing
| not to compete with.
|
| After one more go of "there's no way we can go ahead without an
| NDA in place" (even though I've already said I'm happy with the
| NDA as long as they strike the noncompete clause) I said "OK well
| in that case it's 'no thanks' from me".
|
| 24 hours later they get back to me with "What about if we tell
| you who the client is, will you sign then?". I'm just letting
| them marinade for now...
| gitonup wrote:
| This behavior by recruiters is wildly frustrating to me even
| without NDAs involved. I can't count the number of times I've
| actually been _looking_ for jobs and gotten a coy "I have a
| role you'd be perfect for" message from a recruiter, then when
| I ask who the company is they outright refuse to tell me til I
| get on the phone with them.
|
| For the couple of times I've played ball with this in the past,
| they've told me who the client is on the phone, so why the
| secrecy when it's over an asynchronous messaging platform? I
| don't owe you synchronous time and it'd save us both a lot of
| headache if you'd just be upfront with who you're pitching.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I used to freelance in the past, and I always charged extra for
| signing NDAs other than my standard one. Usually it turned out
| that my standard one was good enough after all, but sometimes I
| actually got paid for signing the client's "special" NDA.
|
| I've never seen any one that egregious, though. I'd charge
| quite a lot to sign that.
| hosteur wrote:
| May I ask how much you charged extra for signing the NDA? And
| was it a one time fee, or a different rate or was it a
| recurring fee while the NDA was in effect?
| nfriedly wrote:
| I think it was about $200, but it's been like 10 years, so
| I'm not certain. It was something in that ballpark, though.
| Basically just enough that I could run it past a lawyer if
| anything seemed questionable to me.
|
| It was a one-time fee.
| glenneroo wrote:
| Well since you didn't sign the NDA... care to divulge who was
| making this preposterous "offer"? ;)
| seanhunter wrote:
| I currently don't know. Just dealt with a random agency who
| was representing them.
| gorbachev wrote:
| An Amazon subsidiary used to, probably still does, require NDAs
| for every candidate they'd invite for an in-house interview.
|
| I went though pretty much the same crap you described. They
| even went as far as to say the NDA is there to protect me. Good
| thing that conversation wasn't on the phone, because I let out
| a pretty good belly laugh over that one.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Quote them a rate that's 5x what you normally go for and see if
| they bite. Add a clause where you need to be compensated for
| the complete duration of the non-compete too. See if they
| respond.
| slymon99 wrote:
| This is entirely different from garden leave (a non-compete
| period where you remain on payroll but are not working), correct?
| This seems like a fair version, where if a company thinks their
| trade secrets are that important (often true in finance), they
| have to pay you your salary for the period of the non-compete.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies. If companies weren't able to secure
| those protections, they'd need to pay lower salaries, and we'd
| all be worse off.
|
| I don't agree. I think the non-compete is more an acknowledgement
| that certain people have a higher degree of mastery and
| understanding of a subject and that the company doesn't want to
| lose that. Having a competitor pick that up is probably a
| secondary concern to losing it.
|
| Also, it does not follow that anyone would pay lower salaries.
| I'd think higher compensation or better working environment would
| be used to retain those key people. This would lead to companies
| needing to have a better understanding of employee value (but
| that's another topic entirely) rather than just limiting their
| mobility.
| ohazi wrote:
| > Also, it does not follow that anyone would pay lower
| salaries.
|
| Bullshit. If you could fuck off to any of a dozen companies
| doing similar work, your employee would have to pay you well
| and give you raises and treat you well in order to compel you
| to stay, otherwise you would leave.
|
| If employers had a magic button they could press to make it so
| that those dozen employers are too scared to hire you, or to
| make it so that you're worried about getting sued if you leave,
| then you will be more likely to stay at your employee, even if
| they treat you poorly and never give you a raise.
|
| The non-compete agreement is that button, and making you feel
| like you're captive and can't do anything about it is the real
| reason why companies like to mash it. They _like_ being able to
| mistreat you with impunity.
| calkuta wrote:
| We shall not dictate to others what type of private, mutually
| consensual agreements they may make.
| Meph504 wrote:
| In a world that is constantly touting competition drives
| innovation, it seems strange to me that this was ever legal.
|
| Restricting the industry a person can work in, or the ability to
| switch between companies at will only serves to harm the employee
| and their ability to negotiate their compensation.
|
| I've only signed one non compete, and where I am they are only
| enforceable in the county they are signed in, and even then it
| started the relationship with the employer off on the wrong foot,
| I didn't stay long.
| cletus wrote:
| So let's differentiate between conflicts and noncompetes.
|
| Conflicts arise when you do work for someone else while employed
| by a company that may compromise your ability to effectively work
| for that company or may be detrimental to that company's
| business. This is an employment condition that is common and
| reasonable burt with large companies may exclude pretty much
| everything because large companies compete everywhere.
|
| Often companies will have a blanket rule on such things. This
| could be as simple as "this is your full time job, you can't have
| another" but it shouldn't exclude running a restaurant if your
| company is a food delivery app.
|
| Noncompetes apply after the end of employment. There are a very
| few high-level employees for which this makes sense. If someone
| can leave a company and take all that company's clients then
| that's a problem. But again noncompetes are used for normal
| employees that make no sense.
|
| We don't need to ban them. We need to force companies to pay for
| the privilege.
|
| Courts generally uphold the principle that a company can't deny
| you the reasonable ability to earn a living. So if you're a
| plumber and your noncompete says you can't work for another
| plumber within the same state then that's likely not enforceable.
|
| Rather than this interpretation, how about we force companies to
| say "we will pay you a year's salary upon termination and you
| agree not to work for X".
|
| I think you'll see a whole lot less noncompetes.
| austincheney wrote:
| I have never encountered a non-compete in my home state of Texas,
| so I looked this up:
|
| https://www.texasnoncompetelaw.com/articles/noncompete-agree...
|
| It appears in Texas non-competes are a thing, but only to
| restrict the direct transfer of business/market responsibility to
| a competing business, which I imagine generally applies to only
| senior executives and sales agents.
|
| It seems at one point almost all of the travel industry, except
| Expedia, was located in my area and people were bouncing between
| competing employers all the time without any limitation. People
| were even leaving their employers to found competing businesses
| without limitation.
|
| As somebody who has never had to deal with this madness it seems
| strange that any state would want to wound its own economy by
| restricting employee mobility.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > it seems strange that any state would want to wound its own
| economy by restricting employee mobility
|
| It seems strange that a state would make laws that serve the
| interests of the wealthy and powerful?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > it seems strange that any state would want to wound its own
| economy by restricting employee mobility.
|
| That's because you think the goal is to maximize the state's
| overall revenue/economy. It's not. It's to maximize the income
| to specific well connected individuals and their investments.
| claytonjy wrote:
| Good to know; I got a rather broader non-compete from an Austin
| startup recently, though they have an overseas HQ. To their
| credit, they removed it upon my request, though I ultimately
| accepted a different role.
| mabbo wrote:
| There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems.
|
| First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work
| here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're
| clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a
| straight up ban on that.
|
| The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work
| here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I
| work as a developer making a stock trading app, I shouldn't be
| making a competing stock trading app after hours.
|
| But my employer does _everything_. There is no field that my
| employer is not involved in, somehow. You can guess who they are,
| probably, or just read my profile. And they say "You cannot do
| anything that competes with anything we do". Which is everything.
| Want to make a Sudoku app? That's a game, we do games. Want to do
| some open source ML library work? We do ML, you can't do ML
| outside of work (I asked legal that one). And that's ignoring the
| who-knows-how-many secret un-released projects that _might_
| relate.
|
| They don't even tell us "no" anymore. They just say "read the
| non-compete agreement and do what it says". Basically "do what
| you like, but if we ever feel like it wasn't right, you're fired
| and maybe sued".
|
| And when I apply to other companies, they ask "do you have a
| github account?". No, I've been highly motivated not to.
|
| Edit: eesh, this was a bit of a rant, wasn't it? Apologies for
| that. But maybe folks have ideas on what to do about it, apart
| from the obvious.
| cgb223 wrote:
| I know the former are illegal in California, but are the latter
| illegal as well?
| [deleted]
| blippage wrote:
| In the UK, there's Unfair Contracts.The US is the same, I would
| imagine. Here's what https://www.lawdepot.co.uk/contracts/non-
| compete-agreement/ says: "Employers can create a Non-Compete
| Agreement for as long as they wish. Having said that, if a Non-
| Compete Agreement limits a former employee for too long, it's
| unlikely that a court will enforce the document.
|
| Judges will likely consider a period of six months to a year to
| be a reasonable amount of time. The time period you choose
| should reasonably protect your company and make sense in your
| industry. As a result, there isn't a standard time period for a
| Non-Compete Agreement."
|
| So, tricky, but anything longer than a year is likely to be
| deemed unreasonable. There may be exceptions, such as when a
| business owner sells a business, and the sale contains a non-
| compete. In that case, a non-compete is likely to hold up.
|
| The article goes on: "Courts may not enforce a non-compete
| clause in the UK if:
|
| * The effect could be harmful to the public (if it restricts
| commerce and depresses the local economy) * The scope is
| broader than necessary to protect the employer * The
| restriction would cause undue hardship on the employee (too
| difficult for the employee to find a new job) * The agreement
| has unreasonable time or geographic restrictions"
|
| In late 2020, the UK gov't sought feedback on "Measures to
| reform post-termination non-compete clauses in contracts of
| employment " here:
| https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/measures-to-refo...
| The outcome has not yet been published.
|
| "The purpose of the consultation is to seek views on:
|
| * proposals to make non-compete clauses enforceable only when
| the employer provides compensation during the term of the
| clause, and whether this could be complemented by additional
| transparency measures and statutory limits on the length of
| non-compete clauses
|
| * an alternative proposal to make post-termination, non-compete
| clauses in contracts of employment unenforceable"
|
| This seems to be heading in the right direction. I am against
| non-competes in general.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| Go ahead and make a Sudoku app. No one at Amazon will care.
| Contribute to the ML library. The worst that will happen in
| practice is they ask you to stop, but even that seems unlikely.
| akomtu wrote:
| If your side project is at least a two man operation, say that
| all the work is done by your buddy, while you only have
| ownership rights. Or say your buddy hired a cheap noname
| outsourcing firm or even a freelancer who did the work and
| vanished. At the end of the day, software is too complex and
| it's unprovable that you did any of it.
| nobody_at_all wrote:
| > Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours.
|
| How is that obvious?
|
| If a single person, regardless of where they work, can produce
| a stock trading app that would actually compete against what a
| company is producing, why shouldn't they do it?
|
| People are starting to learn how much power they really have
| (see the current low wage revolt), perhaps programmers will
| realize it someday and stop allowing companies to steamroll
| them.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Shouldn't be a problem if they paid adequately. Employee that
| has 10x salary unlikely is going to look for his or hers own
| way. When I was on a low pay I always had side projects.
| tobmlt wrote:
| Wow, yeah thanks for this. I never have time to study for code
| challenges... (I am a math/physics/optimization programmer - no
| code challenge prep background) looks like an order of
| magnitude more reason not to bother.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Agreed on the first kind. It _kind of sort of_ makes sense in
| the original context: say I run a bakery. I put it up for sale.
| You think it 's a pretty good deal, so we agree and I sell the
| bakery to you. Then I take the money you paid me to renovate
| the building across the street, hire your employees out from
| under you. Customers quickly learn that the "original" moved
| across the street, and I'm laughing all the way to the bank. A
| noncompete that says, "I promise not to open a bakery within 40
| miles in in the next 3 years" is pretty reasonable. However,
| the concept deteriorates with the internet, where there's no
| reasonable equivalent of a 40 mile radius, so the terms become
| "just don't use your expertise for X years".
|
| Noncompetes _for employees_ are much more dubious. If my head
| chef wants to try and pull the same trick on me, it 's his
| investment at risk... If he's really that motivated to undercut
| me, maybe I should think long and hard about why. The only
| variant I could see being okay with is if the term starts at
| the start of the employment. That is, if you leave after 2
| months, you can't compete for 22 months, but if you stay the
| full 2 years, nothing stops you. (I still don't _like_ that,
| but it 's tolerable).
|
| I'm not sure about the second type of noncompete. Is it the
| problem, or is the problem that _your employer does
| everything?_ I suspect both, and a fairer version would
| restrict the noncompete to "stuff that you work on directly".
| Or maybe the noncompete should have to specify the bounds and
| wouldn't be enforceable if they're too broad, similar to
| patents... on second thought, never mind. In any case, I'd
| first like to see whether it's still overly restrictive if
| companies were capped to some reasonable size.
| macksd wrote:
| The first one is absolutely problematic, and I've been
| personally negatively affected by other people's non-competes a
| couple of times, but there's some nuance there, I think.
|
| I would like to live in a world where companies invest heavily
| in educating and training their employees and where there's a
| lot of transparency within companies. One of the reasons you
| don't get that is because of the fear of an employee getting
| seduced by a tiny pay increase and losing a bunch of
| competitive edge / trade secrets / investment.
|
| There are other ways to address that than non-competes,
| granted, but we're not doing those things either. In place of
| more nuanced non-competes you just get more companies expecting
| you to take on the risk of buying your own education to be
| trained in a job, bureaucracy and lack of trust in employees,
| etc.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > And that's ignoring the who-knows-how-many secret un-released
| projects that might relate.
|
| Most software businesses exist on a tenuous information
| asymmetry turbocharged by capital (dumping, to reduce prices).
| The noncompete is about protecting well-capitalized customers
| from doing the stuff they're buying from Amazon themselves -
| not because they poach an employee who knows how, but because
| they find out that a piece of free, open source software is the
| secret to it all.
| lucideer wrote:
| > _Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn 't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours._
|
| A lot of siblings have pointed out that this isn't the case
| (I'd agree), so it's maybe worth digging into why you (and
| likely many people) think this should be the case.
|
| My guess is it's to do with IP and trade-secrets, but that's
| clearly already covered by IP law and absolutely doesn't need
| extra provisions in employment contracts to protect company
| interests there.
|
| If I create a competing stock app, I need to be able to
| demonstrate novelty. If I can do that, I don't see an issue. My
| employer still has a lot of advantages in the market (first-to-
| market network effect, funding, etc.) so if I'm able to compete
| with them without stealing IP, I must have
| (tangible/intangible) assets unique to me as an individual to
| do so: my employment contract should not sign over those assets
| outside of my working hours.
|
| If I'm actively weakening my employer's product during my
| working hours to benefit my own that's easily a firing offence
| without the need for non-competes.
|
| What other reasons are there?
| masklinn wrote:
| > There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems.
|
| There are more kinds of non-competes. Neither of the kinds
| you're listing is blanket-legal anywhere in Europe, as far as I
| can tell, but there are still NCC/NCAs.
|
| Generally speaking, in Europe, NCC/NCAs must:
|
| * show a reasonable business interest, _mere competition does
| not ever qualify_
|
| * be geographically limited
|
| * be temporally limited (rarely more than two years)
|
| * be financially compensated (significantly, usually on the
| order of 50% gross salary for the entire period)
|
| > Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours.
|
| No it's not obvious at all. In fact I'd say that on its face
| it's obviously not true.
|
| Unless the employer can justify of a super secret sauce which
| would be endangered by this there's no reason why you could
| not. You could work as a dev of a stock trading app, be
| passionate about stock trading applications, disagree with the
| company's ideas on the subject, and want to realise your own
| ideas.
| DeRock wrote:
| Those NCC/NCAs are unenforceable in California (outside some
| very specific exclusions, like C-level/founders), and
| California thrives, arguably because of it! I don't want my
| employer to be able to bully me into a contract where I can't
| switch to whatever job I want (even for "max 2 years" and
| half my previous pay...). A blanket ban clearly works and
| removes some of the employee/employer power imbalance. Should
| be the end of discussion.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Honestly I think that just requiring that NCAs be financially
| compensated like that would be enough to prevent them from
| being a problem.
| laGrenouille wrote:
| > be financially compensated (significantly, usually on the
| order of 50% gross salary for the entire period)
|
| I think this is the most important protection that's needed
| in the US. NCCs for high-level executives with golden
| parachute clauses actually makes a lot of sense. If their
| former company is essentially paying them (usually a lot!)
| after they leave during the NCC period, that is unlikely to
| get abused and overused.
|
| For anyone who's knowledge and connections is not important
| enough to those kinds of payouts offered to C-suite execs,
| NCCs are just a way to bully employees into not leaving.
| ghaff wrote:
| For C-suite execs, I can definitely see it being a
| reasonable thing. And, honestly, at that level especially
| in large companies, skills are far more transferable to
| even totally different industries.
| [deleted]
| walshemj wrote:
| And normally in the UK and a believe Europe the more senior
| you are the more likely a NC would be valid.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Apparently in the UK non-compete are enforceable even when
| non remunerated, although your other points might stand: the
| non-compete must be in pursuit of a business need (i.e. not
| just a punishment because you left), and as should not extend
| in time and space more than required to fulfill that need
| (non-compete more than 6 months are rarely enforced).
| rich_sasha wrote:
| As another comment said, and I can confirm from personal
| experience, just the fact that you need these to enforce a
| non-compete is no panacea. There is usually enough probable
| cause, or whatever legalese name it has, to take an employee
| to court and cause them enormous havoc and expense (UK
| anyway, but the rest of your post reads consistent with UK
| laws).
|
| Additionally, if you think you are small fry for a firm to
| sue you, not necessarily. Enforcement of non-competes is just
| as much aimed at deterring others from trying as it is at
| affecting you personally, if you spread the cost for the
| company over the 10-20 employees who are deterred, it
| suddenly looks cheap.
|
| Even if against the odds of going against a large corporation
| with deep pockets you eke out a win in court, you are almost
| certainly not getting all your money back, and none of your
| time and stress either.
| achenatx wrote:
| There is a third kind which bars people working for
| professional services companies from taking clients directly or
| going to another company and taking clients.
| skohan wrote:
| I just assumed that was a big part of what big tech is paying
| for when they over-pay developers. They are buying you off so
| you don't work for competitors, or someday become a competitor.
| It's a bit of a gilded cage.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > We do ML, you can't do ML outside of work (I asked legal that
| one).
|
| Keep in mind the legal department represents _your company_ ,
| not you. They will tell you the interpretation of the non-
| compete most favorable to their client. It doesn't mean it is
| correct or even enforceable.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Sure -- but if they use that interpretation to decide whether
| to pursue a lawsuit, then it's relevant to you even if it
| turns out to be unenforceable. (See the last couple
| paragraphs of this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27857407)
| skohan wrote:
| Yeah especially in the US, if a large corporation wants to
| pursue legal action against you, this can be enough to
| destroy your life. In lots of places, the loser of a
| lawsuit has to pay the legal fees of the winner, but that's
| not generally true in the US. That means a large law firm
| or legal team can file a dubious lawsuit in such a way as
| to tie up years of your life, and cost you a significant
| portion of your wealth.
| masklinn wrote:
| Problematically though, in most of the US ridiculously broad
| NCCs are enforceable. The only place where you're safe is
| California, where the only way for an NCC to stick is related
| to business (co)-ownership (selling the business, dissolving
| a partnership, or dissolving an LLC). Out-of-state NCCs are
| also un-enforceable in California.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| You made a very general statement! They are enforceable
| because usually the violator is doing something
| ridiculously broad. Like going to work for McDonalds R&D
| after leaving Burger King as the VP of product design.
|
| My anecdotal experience:
|
| I once worked for a major bank and someone who left another
| major bank held a meeting with developers of a next-gen
| platform where he basically explained, in explicit detail,
| his old employer's entire platform. I would argue a non-
| compete would be 100% enforceable here.
|
| Another time, I was threatened to not use any IP from a
| startup I helped start. I specifically asked early on for
| an agreement to share the rights to my code. On my last day
| this agreement was terminated and the non-compete took
| precedence. Consulting with several lawyers (not in
| california) told me that it would be an uphill battle for
| the business to win against me as the optics of a large
| corp suing an individual doesn't bode well for the
| plantiff. Unless you started a multi-million dollar revenue
| generating project, which in that case I was advised to
| settle as a peace offering.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Like going to work for McDonalds R&D after leaving
| Burger King as the VP of product design.
|
| Don't rightly see why there would be any issue with that.
| If you bring McD IP to BK, then that's an IP theft issue.
|
| > I once worked for a major bank and someone who left
| another major bank held a meeting with developers of a
| next-gen platform where he basically explained, in
| explicit detail, his old employer's entire platform. I
| would argue a non-compete would be 100% enforceable here.
|
| And I would argue a non-compete should be 100% non-
| enforceable here. "I learned shit on my previous job"
| doesn't mean you should not be able to work in the field
| anymore.
| redler wrote:
| At what point does an explanation like this turn into
| "here's an inside look at exactly how their platform
| outcompetes you in area X"? Where does one draw the line?
| masklinn wrote:
| > Where does one draw the line?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > I once worked for a major bank and someone who left
| another major bank held a meeting with developers of a
| next-gen platform where he basically explained, in
| explicit detail, his old employer's entire platform. I
| would argue a non-compete would be 100% enforceable here.
|
| This is what non-disclosure agreements are for. A non-
| compete would basically have prevented him from getting
| this new job.
| elliekelly wrote:
| But I don't think this is nearly as true as you think it
| is. In Massachusetts, for example, if you were laid off
| your non-compete may be completely void and unenforceable.
| In some states the clause is only enforceable if the
| employee is given consideration for entering into the
| agreement and continued employment is, by law, _not_ valid
| consideration. Other states have specific rules about how
| the non-compete clause must be written or provided to the
| employee: given X days before signing, notifying of right
| to counsel, etc. In large multinational corporations with
| standardized employment documents it's hard to keep up with
| all of the changes to local law so the provision in your
| agreement might be invalid in your jurisdiction on its
| face.
|
| There are so many factors to consider but so often people
| just assume defeat and don't even bother to seek out legal
| advice. And that's only to management's benefit.
| jvreagan wrote:
| I would like to understand whether there are any states
| that even occasionally backs the employer in non-competes
| for the general layperson. In my experience, courts tend to
| side with someone who's willing to work over employers.
|
| This is why non-competes are a joke in the US. Courts
| aren't going to enforce them. Almost every state has an
| industry where moving between companies, or starting
| companies to compete with existing companies, exist
| (midwest auto industry, New York financial industry, Texas
| energy, etc).
|
| It's great that California is so explicit. I wish other
| states would follow suit. But the only times I've ever seen
| a court uphold a non-compete is for highly (8 figures)
| compensated employees.
| wombatpm wrote:
| I think that Massachusetts takes the anti-California
| approach. The medical and pharmaceutical industries have
| really pushed for string enforceable NCC
| ghaff wrote:
| Companies like EMC also pushed for them.
|
| But changes in the law in 2018 weakened them considerably
| and made them more expensive to enforce via garden leave
| or alternative consideration. The only time I've had a
| non-compete in MA (small sample to be sure) was when EMC
| acquired my employer. The terms were actually fairly
| reasonable and didn't affect me when I left six months
| later.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this? Are you a lawyer? Do you
| follow cases? Not being sarcastic, genuinely want to
| know.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Bullshit clauses like this are exactly why I was reluctant to
| get a job in ML.
|
| My reaction would be "Fuck you, I do ML, I'll do ML outside
| of work if I damn well please" and then quit.
|
| (Posting this down here since it's not really toplevel reply
| worthy and is admittedly a rant, but I do feel the need to
| express that _somewhere_. It 's tiresome that companies think
| they own you.)
| yebyen wrote:
| > "do you have a github account?". No, I've been highly
| motivated not to.
|
| That is a shame, and given the extent to which most businesses
| and groups are built on Open Source, the fact that your
| situation is not in any way unique (to your employer or at
| large) is what makes it IMHO much worse.
|
| I ran into technical limitations with my testing framework at
| one point where I realized that it was going to make my work
| 10x more complicated if I couldn't simply take some of the
| common libraries that I had factored out of my apps, and make
| them public.
|
| You know what I'm saying, the CI machine can't run without a
| machine account if "bundle install" requires a valid SSH
| account. Getting the SSH account inside of a Docker container
| was an exercise of Rube Goldberg proportions, I eventually did
| it, but doubt strongly I would have ever been able to get
| anyone else to understand how or why that solution worked.
|
| So I did the rational thing and published a few libraries to
| simplify the stack. 6 months later, we received a message from
| the head of InfoSec who was "very disappointed" after looking
| at our GitHub account.
|
| Nobody competes with us. There was no risk of helping the
| competition. We're not in the business of software development
| (though we had an entire department of folks whose job title
| was Application Developer, so figure that one out...)
|
| Their concern wasn't that it was against an NDA or that we
| hadn't gotten it approved, it was that threat-actors will take
| any signal they can about our internal stuff and turn it into
| an attack vector. Given what specifically it was that we had
| published, this was beyond irrational. I told them "it's 2020
| and this is a backwards position to be holding in 2020." Shine
| a light, get more eyes on it.
|
| There is no danger and I'm glad that someone looked at my code,
| I said, even if only for a few minutes - which I know would not
| have happened at all if we kept the repo internal.
|
| Yeah, I don't work there anymore (not specifically because of
| this incident, but it was a contributing factor to me leaving
| voluntarily, without a doubt.)
| k__ wrote:
| There are more.
|
| I have some that state, I can't work directly with clients of
| my clients.
| mathattack wrote:
| It's a good reason to keep quiet. :-)
|
| What's interesting about the first case you cite is those types
| of NDAs help individual companies but hurt the ecosystem.
|
| Wherever there's a large grouping of world class firms, they
| benefit in aggregate from cross-pollination. Think NYC for
| banking and advertising, CA and Seattle for tech, Houston for
| energy, Etc. One reason people can chase the best ideas in CA
| is non-competes aren't enforceable. But in any individual case
| someone leaving hurts the firm they were previous employed at.
| So firms still push for non-competes.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The problem is that if there's any chance an employer will win,
| there's a cost that the employee needs to consider. If it's not
| clear that non competes are going to fail immediately, people
| are going to get bullied by letigious employers, and less
| letigious employers will actually benefit from the will-he-
| won't-he of it too.
|
| Also note that there's a fair bit of legal myths floating
| around society, so if it's not made clear some people will end
| up backing out when they would have won.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn 't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours._
|
| As long as you're not using resources from your employer,
| including things like IP or trade secrets, then it's not so
| obvious to me.
|
| What you do on your own time with your own resources is your
| own business. If that's seen as competition, then that's just
| too bad. This is how free markets work.
| lacker wrote:
| _The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work
| here"._
|
| It's just semantics, but these restrictions are usually not
| covered by "non-compete agreements". They are more often called
| something like an "IP assignment agreement", where you agree
| that anything you produce in your employer's area of work while
| you are employed there, the IP belongs to your employer.
|
| In practice, many employees simply ignore these agreements, and
| it usually works out fine. The FAANG companies aren't in the
| business of suing small companies started by ex-employees.
| Asking legal is pointless, they will just tell you that
| everything is forbidden. So just ignore your legal department
| and work on your side project.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yeah that would be solved by NDAs and trade secrets.
|
| Then if you write a stock trading app... Did you have any
| contact with the team that was writing the companies stock
| trading app, did you sign any NDAs about that, did you
| receive any information about that, did you have any trade
| secrets? No? Then they shouldn't have any claim.
|
| IP assignment and non-competes should be eliminated for non-
| managerial employees.
|
| Or for IP assignment it needs to be whittled down to narrowly
| apply only to what the employee actually worked on, not
| anything the business does.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| NDAs and trade secrets are difficult to enforce in practice
| for many types of ip that can't go in a patent, like market
| and product strategy.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > So just ignore your legal department and work on your side
| project.
|
| Nah, I just quit, and in my exit interview I told them why.
| caconym_ wrote:
| > Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours.
|
| For rank-and-file employees, I don't think this is so obvious.
| It presents a potential conflict of interest, sure, but if I'm
| fulfilling my job responsibilities and not holding anything
| back or stealing nonpublic info/trade secrets/whatever then
| what's the problem? It shouldn't be the mere possibility of
| competition--we _like_ competition, remember?
|
| In America we default to the corporation's rights taking
| precedence over the individual's rights. We say the mere _risk_
| that an employee 's side projects might step on their
| employer's (poorly defined) rights in some way is enough to
| preemptively assign ownership of all the employee's work to
| their employer, just in case. From the viewpoint of the
| corporate masters and the lifelong-conditioned wage-slave
| masses, that seems good and right; in a vacuum, IMO, it seems
| completely backwards. We should be trying to nucleate
| innovation, not stifle it. Why should an employee with a good
| idea, who is not _paid_ to have ideas in that scope, jump
| through whatever hoops it takes to get their employer to notice
| it--probably at the cost of their own time, uncompensated--and
| let said employer reap the lion 's share of the rewards?
|
| Even for employees who are literally paid to generate ideas,
| for product design or strategy or whatever else, the onus
| should be on the employer to provide a good value proposition
| for employees to share their ideas (the original contents of
| their own minds) rather than hold onto them. In reality I see
| plenty of cases where this _does_ happen, so while the "shower
| idea" argument is compelling enough, I don't think it's an
| effect that stands to substantially threaten corporate success
| regardless of whatever rote legalese appears in employment
| agreements.
|
| At the very least, even if (the general) you don't agree with
| me, you should take a step back and consider whether your
| personal ethic of capitalism is giving employers more moral
| weight than they are really due.
| orangecat wrote:
| _It presents a potential conflict of interest, sure, but if I
| 'm fulfilling my job responsibilities and not holding
| anything back or stealing nonpublic info/trade
| secrets/whatever then what's the problem?_
|
| This is a bit like "sure I'm dating one of my direct reports,
| but as long as I don't show them any special treatment what's
| the problem?". In both cases even if you genuinely believe
| what you're saying, it causes your incentives to be very much
| misaligned with your employer's.
| caconym_ wrote:
| My incentives are never going to be in perfect alignment
| with my employer: I work for them to build my own wealth,
| and they employ me to build theirs. The foundation of the
| employer-employee relationship is that each provides the
| other with a means to realize their incentive in a way
| that's mutually satisfactory, if asymmetric. If this
| relationship is out of balance, either party is free to
| engage in negotiations or terminate the relationship.
|
| Employers have concrete strategies available to them for
| maintaining their position in this negotiated relationship.
| Typically they will have a performance review process,
| which should have no problem determining whether they're
| getting what they're paying me for. Separately, the legal
| system we're both subject to protects legitimate
| intellectual property perfectly well without overbearing
| noncompetes and invention assignments; cases of physical
| property theft, etc., are also covered.
|
| So what's the problem? Why should employers have additional
| rights to make sure that, if the situation is ever remotely
| muddy, it goes their way by default?
|
| (I say _should_ in the moral sense, and the broader sense
| of socioeconomic utility. In a might-makes-right frame,
| obviously they _should_ have it simply because they are
| strong enough to take it. That is what we have right now,
| in practice.)
| [deleted]
| dpweb wrote:
| Had a non-compete (consulting). Employer was cool at my old
| workplace. We didn't have any super-proprietary knowledge or
| book of business to walk off with - so generally they weren't
| enforced. But they needed it to protect the business and I can
| understand that.
|
| In my state, by law the contract can't cause 'undue
| difficulties'. You could prob make the case that were I to
| leave, it prevents me from working in my industry - I'd call
| that a good enough argument to go before a judge with, esp in a
| blue state.
| Hitgub wrote:
| > they ask "do you have a github account?". No, I've been
| highly motivated not to.
|
| I release all my projects under a fake name and fake Github for
| this reason. Ethically dubious, but I still get to contribute
| code and I have something to send a prospective employer.
|
| When they ask why it's pseudonymous, I say "non-competes" and
| they nod in understanding.
| gpderetta wrote:
| It was a _good_ rant
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think not competing with any area in which the company works
| is a convenient test. But I suspect the ultimate legal test is
| actually more constrained. One more like: do not compete with
| an area for which you directly work in or are exposed to
| information about for the company.
| ownagefool wrote:
| Actually.
|
| Why shouldn't you be able to make a stock trading app after
| hours?
| adrr wrote:
| The second one is worse than that. You're a line cook and due
| to businesses not wanting to pay benefits. You can only find
| part time gigs. Forced to sign a non compete now limits your
| options for a second job.
|
| Line cook is an extreme example but it happens to other
| professions like personal trainers. There has been cases where
| non competes were forced on restaurant workers.
| mabbo wrote:
| > but it happens to other professions like personal trainers
|
| Funny enough, this exact issue caused me to lose a personal
| trainer.
|
| See, he opened a gym that competed with the gym he trained me
| at. Like, he was the owner and manager of that other gym.
| While also being an employed personal trainer at my gym. And
| did not hide this fact from anyone.
|
| When the gym told him he had to quit or be fired, even he was
| of the "I'm surprised it took this long" perspective and
| understood their reasoning.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading
| app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after
| hours.
|
| Why is that obvious? If I work as a studio musician can I also
| be working on my own album after hours?
| rich_sasha wrote:
| You have a good idea for improving the product at 10 am. You
| think about it between 10 am and 4 pm. At 4 pm you discard
| the idea, not gonna work or sth. At 6 pm you type it into
| your app at home.
|
| Of course most people wouldn't, but this is one narrow area
| where I think it is reasonable to limit employees.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > If I work as a studio musician can I also be working on my
| own album after hours?
|
| Yes.
|
| > Why is that obvious?
|
| Just because there's a law somewhere that covers both a part
| of making music and part of making software, and just because
| some programmers make music and some musicians write
| software, and both are sometimes creative, doesn't mean they
| have much in common.
| CPLX wrote:
| For the most part artists signed to songwriting or publishing
| deals as well as run if the mill record deals sign over the
| rights to everything they produce during the covered period.
| k__ wrote:
| Many employers see their markets as zero sum game.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Many markets are zero sum
| lifeformed wrote:
| If you're using melodies and samples from work hours, then
| maybe not. And it would be tough to argue that your at-home
| trading app code is completely uninfluenced by ideas you have
| at work.
| Scarblac wrote:
| > And it would be tough to argue that your at-home trading
| app code is completely uninfluenced by ideas you have at
| work.
|
| And that your at-work trading app code would be influenced
| by ideas you have at home.
|
| You're a craftsman making trading apps, some for an
| employer, some for yourself, it's what you do. It's strange
| for an employer to be allowed to force you to stop doing
| the others without compensating you for it.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| There's a difference in competition and compensation
| between a craftsman who constructs products and an
| inventor who generates ideas. The problem is that the
| world is not black and white, there's a little of each in
| every career, and obviously companies want the best of
| both.
|
| If you were a carpenter who worked in an old-time
| furniture store, turning chair legs on a duplicating
| lathe at work and turning toy spinning tops on a treadle
| lathe at home, there's no harm to your employer if you
| use some related skills at home. If you're not making
| parts that match their requirements, those parts are of
| no value to them. The company might as well pay you per
| unit, rather than hourly or as a salary.
|
| If you worked at a think tank or research institution,
| your job might be to generate one particularly brilliant
| concept that was by itself worth your annual salary. You
| might spend your days testing ideas and improving your
| understanding of the problem domain while your
| subconscious mulls over everything at night. A musician
| is an interesting career in context - are they paid to
| move samples around in Pro Tools or think about and try a
| huge variety of riffs until they find the next Top 40
| sound? If you had a great idea in your sleep, it was
| probably because you've taken a paycheck for the last 6
| months at work generating no useful output, the only
| thing you built was the thought patterns in your brain.
| The company wants to own your brain, the thought patterns
| therein, and everything you think of.
|
| Technology and automation is making ideas more scalable
| all the time, the industrial era where workers were paid
| to pull a lever repeatedly is in the past. I think we're
| only seeing the beginning of non-competes.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| > And that your at-work trading app code would be
| influenced by ideas you have at home.
|
| Umm, but you are also taking money from your employer so
| you can't say that in reverse.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| Umm, but your employer is also taking time from you so
| you definitely can say that in reverse.
|
| In fact, your employer is taking your a fragment of your
| life, and human life is worth more than currency, so
| actually, it's really quite inappropriate if your
| employer was found accidentally using ideas that you had
| while you were in the shower at home when they weren't
| paying you. (internet you-can't-hear-my-voice disclaimer:
| this is obviously hyperbole meant to really drive home
| the point.)
|
| I'm generally a fan of market-based methods of
| structuring economic activity, but this sort of implicit
| assertion that the owner of capital is just obviously
| more important than the owner of labor really puts the "
| _ism_ " is Capitalism.
|
| Labor is a market, and markets are determined by both the
| players and the rules under which the players compete.
| Companies use the force of law to coerce laborers (see:
| every other post in this tread where supposedly free
| people worry about being sued). It's completely fair game
| for labor-force participants to turn around are use that
| same force to coerce employers.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It just depends on your agreement with the company.
| There's no reason that by default they own everything you
| do, beyond the fact that business has normalized it (and
| many other practices with the magic words 'it's just
| business').
| rovr138 wrote:
| >And that your at-work trading app code would be
| influenced by ideas you have at home.
|
| Which is an issue legally. Who owns the code? Who needs
| the license to use it?
| ryukafalz wrote:
| This being an issue seems weird. Surely your employment
| contract could include an extremely permissive license
| grant to your employer for any code you've written that
| you use at work, regardless of whether you own it or they
| do. That's much less intrusive than a noncompete.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| That seems like a strange clause I would want to include.
| I have (?) lines of code, as well as other IP. Why would
| hiring me for a year give them access to free license of
| all my IP?
|
| I saw something in Theranos's employee contract about
| granting a perpetual license to all the patents of the
| employees. I have no idea why that would be reasonable.
| tshaddox wrote:
| True, but you can't use the studio's IP regardless of
| whether you work for the studio.
| masklinn wrote:
| > If you're using melodies and samples from work hours,
| then maybe not.
|
| That would not be a question of competition, but of IP
| theft.
|
| > And it would be tough to argue that your at-home trading
| app code is completely uninfluenced by ideas you have at
| work.
|
| How is that of any relevance? I can have ideas about a
| better way to wipe my ass at work, is my novel ass-wiping
| implement competing with the company?
|
| And even if it were, mere competition should not be enough
| for NCCs to trigger. NCCs should be about _unfair_
| advantage owing to the exploitation of sensitive or
| confidential information.
| MajorBee wrote:
| Well, if your company is in the ass-wiping business...
| masklinn wrote:
| Even then I don't think so. Not unless the novel
| implement is straight up IP theft in which case...
| there's no need for an NCC, IP theft is already a crime.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| This depends. You're drawing a very restricted form of
| noncompete, one which is that a noncompete is only valid
| if for example I walk away with, say information about
| customer priorities and take them to a competitor.
|
| But there is a broader though still imo legitimate view
| that a company, paying a knowledge worker to solve a
| particular class of problems, has a right to the result
| of that work. An extreme example would be a company
| giving you a lab and research assistants, you working
| there a year and then parenting the results yourself and
| licensing them to a different company. It might not have
| required any insider info, and all the IP is ostensibly
| yours, but that feels abusive.
|
| Granted we're overlapping into IP assignment and
| moonlighting clauses, but they're all closely related.
| walshemj wrote:
| Yes that's a totally different employment relationship - you
| could be sued for plagiarism though.
| orangecat wrote:
| _Why is that obvious?_
|
| Because it creates a clear conflict of interest; stock
| trading apps compete with each other much more directly than
| do music albums.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Because it creates a clear conflict of interest
|
| If you're not doing your job anymore, or are sabotaging
| your dayjob, then it's an employment issue. NCCs have no
| reason whatsoever to enter the equation before or after.
| mabbo wrote:
| You know, you're right?
|
| I've been so indoctrinated in how non-competes work that I
| didn't even see that this wasn't obvious. Gah.
| jedimastert wrote:
| The implication isn't that you can't work in the same field,
| but that you could use inside knowledge trusted to you as an
| employee to get a leg up, which would be more analogues to
| taking licks and ideas from a hit album and using them in
| your own.
| II2II wrote:
| What if that recording studio considered inside knowledge
| of the publishing industry gained from your employment with
| them as getting a leg up? That is more-or-less analogous to
| what a family member was told when asked to sign a non-
| compete for a job as a grocery store clerk. (To be
| specific, the company viewed knowing who their supplies
| were as reason for a non-compete.)
| gumby wrote:
| I share your concern but modulate the concern with two factors
| (you may not agree):
|
| 1 - if you work at a company like that (faang, basically) you
| probably have a choice of working elsewhere and they are paying
| you handsomely to give up the ability to have almost any
| software or electronics side projects (my gf wants me to go
| work at one of them and I have decided it's not worth the
| money, though I can understand why others can reasonably think
| otherwise).
|
| The first section of the article talks about this: US labor law
| is pretty firmly rooted in freedom of contract doctrine even
| though for most people there's such extreme asymmetry of power
| that any "freedom" in this area is illusory. But if you're a
| FAANG developer you aren't one of those people -- you have a
| choice.
|
| 2 - every such agreement I have signed has had a "carve out"
| clause: you can list things you've been working on (which is
| vague, I have listed areas I'm interested in and have looked
| into and counted that as "work") and exclude the stuff listed
| there from the agreement. Of course the new employer can
| disagree with the choices ("ARM CPU designs? That's what we're
| hiring you to do!") but again, if that were you, you pretty
| much would have freedom to negotiate. I think such an objection
| would be pretty fair for an employer to have in that situation.
|
| Also if you decide later you want to write a stock app but
| hadn't listed it, well, c'est la vie.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> if you work at a company like that (faang, basically) you
| probably have a choice of working elsewhere_
|
| Heh. I advise early career students from my alma mater. One
| of them took a job with a mom-and-pop web dev + IT firm.
| Super mom and pop. Like, maintaining word press and similar
| installs for maybe a few hundred clients and then bundling
| that with generic IT services (computer repair, maintenance,
| blah blah blah). Basically, as boring as you could possibly
| get.
|
| That employer told my advisee that because the company
| develops software, their non-compete covers _all software_.
|
| Are they correctly interpreting state law? Absolutely not.
| Does that matter to a 2x-year-old making 80K worried about
| losing their job, being sued, being blackballed in their
| small regional labor market (which they don't want to leave
| for family reasons)? Also no.
|
| _> 2 - every such agreement I have signed has had a "carve
| out" clause: you can list things you've been working on
| (which is vague, I have listed areas I'm interested in and
| have looked into and counted that as "work") and exclude the
| stuff listed there from the agreement._
|
| Wait, are you sure that list works how you think it does?
|
| The vast majority of employers won't even talk to you about
| the scope of their non-compete.
|
| At the outset, you are supposed to white-list things when you
| start employment. But then anything non on that white-list (
| _which includes every idea you have after the moment you fill
| it out!!!_ ) has to be assumed to be covered under the NDA,
| unless you're willing to risk a court battle and an enemy.
| gumby wrote:
| Yeah, Junior devs are in the majority who don't have a
| symmetrical relationship with the employer. In California
| such a broad remit would not be enforceable.
|
| FWIW court battles are rare. But better to get rid of the
| noncompetes regardless.
|
| > > _2 - every such agreement I have signed has had a
| "carve out" clause: you can list things you've been working
| on (which is vague, I have listed areas I'm interested in
| and have looked into and counted that as "work") and
| exclude the stuff listed there from the agreement._
|
| > Wait, are you sure that list works how you think it does?
|
| Yes, that's the whole point of that list and the language
| is very clear.
|
| FWIW I've mostly been the employer, not the employee and I
| always scrutinize those lists carefully (if someone writes
| anything there I have to approve it before the agreement
| can be signed). Not because I care what people do in their
| free time, but to see if there's anything there that could
| cause a disagreement, especially if it would be an innocent
| disagreement. And I have never seen anyone write something
| that seemed unreasonable there. TBH most people leave that
| blank.
|
| These docs always go with the employment offer; if the
| employee doesn't see them until their first day what kind
| of negotiation is there then? The whole point is to have
| someone join us and be happy to work with us, not to take
| advantage of them.
| trentnix wrote:
| _But my employer does everything. There is no field that my
| employer is not involved in, somehow. You can guess who they
| are, probably, or just read my profile. And they say "You
| cannot do anything that competes with anything we do". Which is
| everything. Want to make a Sudoku app? That's a game, we do
| games. Want to do some open source ML library work? We do ML,
| you can't do ML outside of work (I asked legal that one). And
| that's ignoring the who-knows-how-many secret un-released
| projects that might relate._
|
| I'm in a US state that allows non-competes. I recently turned
| down a job because I wasn't comfortable with the non-compete I
| was compelled to sign expressly because the company's opinion
| of its own market was so broad. They implored me to trust that
| they had "never sued anyone" and "have no intentions to", and I
| think they honestly believe that. But then why have the non-
| compete at all?
|
| And even if they are true to their word, what happens when they
| sell the company to someone else that exploits the leverage the
| non-compete provides?
|
| A friend of mine was sued by their ex-employer over the
| violation of a non-compete. He lawyered up and fought it. And
| he won! But it was a Pyrrhic victory that resulted in a
| significant expensive of time (the judge granted an injunction
| that forced him out of business until the case was resolved -
| which was around 18 months) and money (he was granted no
| financial judgement). I am convinced the plaintiff's lawyer
| knew they'd lose, but to the suing party the process was
| punishment and that became their goal.
|
| His should be a cautionary tale - even if you're advised that
| the non-compete isn't enforceable, it can still hurt you.
| macksd wrote:
| > They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone"
| and "have no intentions to", and I think they honestly
| believe that. But then why have the non-compete at all?
|
| I feel like I'm yelling at a brick wall when I make a fuss of
| this, but this happens every time I see a doctor too. I'm
| asked to sign forms acknowledging I've read and understood
| long legal documents that they don't have a copy of to show
| me.
|
| "It doesn't matter". Well I can't see the doctor without
| signing it. It only matters if they don't get their way. The
| same is true of the non-compete: it's because it only
| benefits them.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That is the US justice system in a nut shell. Its really just
| a threat for large companies to bleed people until they
| cannot afford to fight anymore. They dont need to win, they
| just need to stay solvent longer than you can.
| masklinn wrote:
| > I'm in a US state that allows non-competes and recently
| turned down a job because I wasn't comfortable with the non-
| compete expressly because the company's opinion of its own
| market was so broad. They implored me to trust that they had
| "never sued anyone" and "have no intentions to", and I think
| they honestly believe that. But then why have the non-compete
| at all?
|
| FWIW you can try editing the contract, removing the NCC
| clause, or tacking on steep consideration for _exercising_
| the NCC (as well as hard limit on it).
|
| If they never sued anyone and have no intention to, they
| don't need an NCC clause, strike it out and ask them to sigh
| the updated contract.
| pc86 wrote:
| They don't even need to sign it. You've only signed the
| edited version, so they can either use the edited version
| or not have a non-compete. If you're comfortable with the
| edited version it doesn't really matter which one they
| choose.
| tacon wrote:
| If the non-compete is just a part of the overall
| employment contract, that means you are working without a
| contract. That can be problematic if the contract
| establishes benefits for you, like your salary, your
| bonus, your vacation, etc., etc.
| pc86 wrote:
| Good point that I definitely overlooked. I was assuming
| the NC was a distinct document.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| > tacking on steep consideration for exercising the NCC (as
| well as hard limit on it)
|
| Now I'm mid-career, employers want to hire me for my
| experience.
|
| If presented with a non-complete clause, I first strike it
| out, saying it isn't fair that you stop me working in my
| core area of expertise, when you're hiring me for exactly
| that reason.
|
| If that gets refused, I instead add a clause that says any
| period where the non-compete is enforced will be paid at my
| full salary.
|
| In practice, there ends up being a short discussion with
| HR, some thinking behind the scenes, and that clause is
| allowed. And when I eventually leave, the non-compete
| period ends up being waived.
| fgonzag wrote:
| > If that gets refused, I instead add a clause that says
| any period where the non-compete is enforced will be paid
| at my full salary.
|
| I believe employment NCs should be illegal, but this is
| the minimum standard a non compete should require to be
| legal. The fact that companies can essentially force you
| to stop working for years, without paying, is ridiculous
| in my opinion.
| baron816 wrote:
| You did the right thing. It's totally possible that they come
| back to you and say "alright, we'll drop the non-compete."
| Especially if the feds appear to be heading towards voiding
| them all anyway.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone"
| and "have no intentions to", and I think they honestly
| believe that. But then why have the non-compete at all?
|
| Exactly. 'That's great; we can resolve that issue easily.
| Let's just skip the non-compete - you're not using it anyway
| and I'm not comfortable with it.'
|
| EDIT: A non-lawyer's suggestion (talk to a lawyer before you
| do this): Skip signing or edit documents (cross out and
| initial sections you don't like, add words - and initial each
| change) and then sign and send it back. Don't say a thing;
| leave it to them to bring it up - most people won't bother
| disputing it with you.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| My offer letter explicitly stated that starting work (and
| accepting the stated pay) constituted agreeing to all the
| docs sent over, unless explicitly agreed upon otherwise.
|
| I can't wait to have enough savings to quit and move to
| california where the employee protections are so much
| higher.
| jfengel wrote:
| It's interesting to hear you say that, moments after
| coming from a thread where people were explaining why
| California is so terrible.
|
| I feel like the symbol of the 2020s is Chesterton's
| Fence[1], people chafing against restrictions and then
| having to reinvent them. I'm sure that some people are
| indeed fleeing California, and will then immediately
| start reinventing it.
|
| Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. The reinvention
| could be like a clean-sheet reimplementation that's
| better than maintaining a smelly old code base. But that
| only works if you know all of the reason those code
| smells are there, and don't simply re-start the same
| process to recreate the same bugs.
|
| [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence
| majormajor wrote:
| It's perpetually curious to me when people blame CA
| problems on a lack of upzoning and then ... move to much
| less dense places with plenty of NIMBYism.
|
| Sure, you're getting away from the problem, but not
| because anyone there has a solution - just because they
| haven't been hit by the same problem to the same extent
| yet, because "sprawl outwards" works for a long time when
| you have less geographical boundaries.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| What's strange to me is how people, particularly those in
| California, think that banning non-competes were somehow
| a California idea or that CA is the only state that does
| that. Yes banning non-competes is one of the things CA
| got right. People who complain are concerned about the
| things it got wrong. The idea that if you want non-
| competes then you must also accept insane regulatory
| burdens isn't really tenable when you look at the other
| states that ban non-competes and don't suffer from the
| same problems as California. There are low-regulation red
| states like Montana, Oklahoma, and North Dakota that have
| the same non-compete bans that CA has and many other
| states such as Utah and Texas place severe limits on
| them, whereas there are high-regulation states such as
| Massachusetts that allow non-competes.
|
| Please don't try to turn the non-compete issue into a
| california good-or-bad issue because it's just not a
| california thing.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| California is really great in a lot of ways, but the
| issue that really drives people away from it is cost.
| verall wrote:
| Maybe we could keep the protections for labor and drop
| the many additional protections for landowners.
| jfengel wrote:
| I wonder if that would be necessary. San Francisco is
| kind of a special case as a small peninsula. That puts
| limits on the ways it can grow. You could probably build
| more housing units but you'll rapidly run into limits on
| streets, utilities, schools, etc.
|
| I don't know how much the issue is with the rest of
| Silicon Valley. There used to be a lot of undeveloped
| area not too far from Palo Alto.
|
| Texas may want to avoid the wrong kind of over-dense
| housing, since they've got plenty of land, though there
| are also reasons to encourage people not to commute
| multiple dozens of miles per day.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| >I wonder if that would be necessary. San Francisco is
| kind of a special case as a small peninsula. That puts
| limits on the ways it can grow. You could probably build
| more housing units but you'll rapidly run into limits on
| streets, utilities, schools, etc.
|
| I'm going to push back on this. Manhattan is less than
| half the size of San Francisco and has nearly four times
| the population density. The Bronx is roughly the same
| size and has double the population density. It isn't that
| San Francisco can't expand, it is that it doesn't want
| to.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| You know what Manhattan has that SF doesn't.
|
| Subways[1].
|
| Sure developers would love to build more chicken coops
| for tech bros. But they absolutely don't want to kick
| down coin to pay for the subway system needed to support
| that density.
|
| [1] Oh yea SF has BART which was built 50 years ago and
| not expanded since. And the central subway which is 1.7
| miles long, not open yet after ten years of construction
| and 20 years after it got the green light.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The famous legend of NYC is that they had the vision to
| build infrastructure beyond current needs.
|
| Now, it's trendy to view any investment by democratic
| government as wasteful, and to reduce the taxes by which
| the community makes that investment to nothing.
|
| What will happen to future generations, who have us as
| their forbears rather than the visionary New Yorkers.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I agree, which is my underlying point: they don't want to
| expand! The lack of public transit is a problem plenty of
| people have been yelling about for decades, as you
| mentioned. Developers, citizens, and the city council
| have all proven over the years they are unwilling to do
| what needs to be done to make expansion possible.
| runnerup wrote:
| > EDIT: A non-lawyer's suggestion (talk to a lawyer before
| you do this): Skip signing or edit documents (cross out and
| initial sections you don't like, add words - and initial
| each change) and then sign and send it back. Don't say a
| thing; leave it to them to bring it up - most people won't
| bother disputing it with you.
|
| My actual lawyer's advice is that doing this can be viewed
| by a court as "fraud" if it looks like the intention was
| for the counter-party to miss the changes. It's their
| problem if they miss changes, but it's your problem if you
| used deception to cause them to miss it. This exact thing
| that you suggested is what he told me I shouldn't do if I
| want it to hold up in court.
|
| I ended up signing a contract that said "cannot work for
| any customers, competitors, or suppliers for twelve months"
| of a global company that worked with every industry and
| most companies. I went the route of hiding my next jobs in
| LinkedIn after I left.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > It's their problem if they miss changes, but it's your
| problem if you used deception to cause them to miss it.
| This exact thing that you suggested is what he told me I
| shouldn't do if I want it to hold up in court.
|
| I did not at all suggest trying to cause them to miss the
| changes. I suggested (with the caveat of asking a
| lawyer), "Don't say a thing; leave it to them to bring it
| up". That's a common negotiating tactic, even in amateur
| or interpersonal negotiations. I'm not imaging they won't
| see it, I'm imagining they won't want to create problems
| for themselves by bringing it up.
| runnerup wrote:
| > I'm not imagining they won't see it
|
| As my lawyer put it, if the communication goes like this:
|
| Employer: "Okay great! Just sign these and you can
| start."
|
| Candidate: *edits documents*
|
| Candidate: *signs documents*
|
| Candidate: "Okay great! Here I've signed 'em. Can't wait
| to start!"
|
| That _might_ be fraud, regardless of your intent. Because
| there was no reasonable expectation that there was any
| negotiation even going on in the first place where any
| changes could have been expected to have been made. It
| sounded like different courts might have different
| opinions on the matter, but he strongly recommended
| against it.
|
| As long as there was some version of negotiation going on
| "hey here's the changed document feel free to sign it and
| get it back to me" then you don't really need to tell
| them every little thing that changed, if they miss
| something it'll be much more likely to still bind in
| court.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| Well we have never had to sue anyone because no one has
| ever actually called our bluff when we send them a
| threatening demand/cease and desist letter from our
| lawyers.
|
| So if you decide to call our bluff in the future just know
| we won't sue you...because we don't have to sue, our
| agreement makes you waive your right to have the case heard
| by a court in lieu of mediation by a mediator of our
| choosing, from a mediation company we send all our cases
| to.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _makes you waive your right to have the case heard by a
| court in lieu of mediation by a mediator of our choosing_
|
| This really should be made explicitly illegal. It should
| not be possible for an individual to surrender the right
| to bring a dispute in front of the court.
| ozim wrote:
| They are not using it but just imagine that company gets
| acquired by people who do those kind of things.
|
| Contract with company is not contract with current
| management only. I don't know who will be there in 2 years
| in charge.
|
| My current company was acquired by a bigger company like a
| year ago, fast forward one year - even bigger company is
| now owner of our parent company.
| b3morales wrote:
| Not to mention that the person making the assurances --
| hiring manager, or even worse, recruiter (who may not
| even be an employee!) -- is not likely the person who
| makes the decision to enforce the clause.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| That's a pretty good idea for emailed PDF documents.
| Typically, I have received a link to a signing service, and
| editing is not enabled by their UIs of course.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| In that case, you simply need to email back before
| signing with the changes you need made. The company will
| do that to you if they get something wrong (wrong start
| date, incorrect pay or bonus percentage), so it is
| completely reasonable to have a conversation about what
| adjustments you need made to your contract. The worst
| they can say is no. And if they say no, that's a sign
| that you should really think about what you are signing.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| A fundamental of negotiations (and human relationships)
| is not wanting to create problems or appear to be a
| 'trouble-maker'.
|
| In a recent personal situation, it was obvious serious
| mistakes were being made and it was obvious what the
| solution was - painful, but certainly better than the
| alternative. However, we hadn't yet experienced the
| consequences, and predictably another other party railed
| at me for making things unnecessarily complicated.
|
| Employees at businesses don't want to be seen as trouble-
| makers and have their offers rescinded.
|
| A (manipulative) trick to negotiations is to put the
| other person in the position of being the trouble-maker.
| lostapathy wrote:
| I had an employer hit me with an even more egregious non-
| compete. It said I couldn't work for 12 months for anyone in
| a market they were in, or in any market their competitors
| worked in.
|
| Our little sub-$1million startup was selling devices that
| competed with devices from a bunch of mega players like Dell,
| IBM and Amazon. Who's left to work for if you can't work for
| anyone who competes with Amazon?
| simfree wrote:
| I have seen multiple small companies that contribute to the
| CNCF demand their employees sign noncompete agreements like
| this.
|
| Even working a retail job would violate this agreement, as
| that is a market their competitors are in (despite it
| having no relation to cloud tooling!)
| zippergz wrote:
| Also the people claiming (and believing) that they have no
| intention of suing are not the people who make the decision
| to sue or not (unless it's an extremely small company, or you
| are an important enough hire to be discussing this with the
| CEO and General Counsel). Even if they have the best
| intentions, some random recruiter or manager really has no
| insight into this.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Absolutely -- very early in my career, a startup I worked
| at had non-compete language in my original employment
| contract (naming very specific places I couldn't be poached
| to take a job at) and even though the company was very
| small and the person who made me the job offer was the COO
| (and they assured me they would never actually excise the
| non-compete), I still refused to sign until that language
| was taken out.
|
| I also got language put into my contract to specifically
| allow for some of my moonlighting activities that could
| possibly be seen as a conflict. Both wound up being useful
| when the company expanded and they attempted to enforce
| different rules on me. Because my contract said what it
| said, I was able to get the HR person to back-off and
| didn't have any fear when I did eventually leave for a
| competitor. And because of my moonlighting clause, I was
| able to have side-projects when other employees were often
| discouraged from doing the same thing (part of me felt bad
| for having different rules, but if I was capable of getting
| those clauses put in my contract when I was 24, others were
| too).
|
| It is true that employees, especially lower-level
| employees, don't always have the leverage to change the
| contracts they sign (especially at larger companies), but I
| would personally never sign a non-compete unless there were
| very specific scenarios involved (i.e. it was either
| incredibly, incredibly narrow or the company would pay me
| while I waited out the non-compete), no matter what HR or
| the recruiter says. You don't need to be adversarial when
| discussing language or making changes -- most places are
| reasonable. And if a place isn't reasonable but refuses to
| remove non-compete language from a contract, even though
| they swear they will never exercise it, well, that's a
| giant red flag.
| kbenson wrote:
| > They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone"
| and "have no intentions to", and I think they honestly
| believe that.
|
| It doesn't matter what they believe, because a company does
| not have the same consistency of goals and actions as a
| person, and even a person can't be entirely trusted on things
| (even family sometimes turns on each other if the
| circumstances are sure enough). A company? Their entire board
| and management might change over time, or they might be
| bought out and have another entity with different goals.
|
| Put another way, when considering and NDA during hiring, you
| should consider whether you would work for Oracle under the
| same NDA. Because what would happen if Oracle bought (or
| bought a controlling interest) in that company tomorrow? Do
| you still think you could go on past behavior with regard to
| legal action?
|
| This is the exact same with privacy, and that's where I
| usually bring this up. It doesn't matter that I think Google
| is unlikely to do anything bad with the private info they
| have about me right now. I'm more worried about the Google
| (or whoever ends up with the data) five, ten or fifteen years
| from now.
| 3wolf wrote:
| One argument in favor of non-competes in the consulting world is
| that they avoid a situation where Company B undercuts Company A
| during a recompete, and then poaches all of Company A's employees
| to staff the project (likely at lower salaries since they put in
| a lower bid on the contract).
| rafaelero wrote:
| Any type of non-compete agreement is ridiculous and the fact that
| it is so widespread in what was supposed to be the most free
| country in the world makes you guys look like a joke.
| zucker42 wrote:
| I strongly agree with the case against non-competes, and think
| almost all of them should be unenforceable. That said, is there
| any reason for this to be undertaken at the national level
| instead of the state level? Generally, I prefer state level
| interventions because they are easier to undo/avoid, less removed
| from the people they are serving, and less catastrophic if they
| are flawed (essentially, I agree with "laboratories of democracy"
| conception).
| tracyhenry wrote:
| A noob question: how can a small business get to keep the secret
| ingredient of their success if employees are allowed to jump ship
| as they wish?
|
| From the employee perspective banning non-competes are ofc the
| best thing. But this feels terrible if it means that secret
| sauces of small startups will get copied easily (potentially by
| bigger players).
| ivanbakel wrote:
| The fact is that "secret sauces" are basically worthless. Every
| successful business is 99% execution (& luck). A startup,
| especially in tech, will never be able to base its value on
| something simple enough for an employee to smuggle out legally
| (i.e. in their brain).
| tracyhenry wrote:
| This is a very biased view IMO. Plenty of businesses are
| based on patented secret sauces. Even for the type of
| companies that rely on execution, there will be important
| lessons learned, which ultimately become the "secret sauces".
| And you don't fear a random employee who might fit your
| secrets in their brain. You fear a set of experienced
| employees who can replicate your businesses somewhere else if
| they want to.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| >Plenty of businesses are based on patented secret sauces.
|
| Secret sauces are, by definition, unpatented - if a
| business has patented an idea, it is no longer secret, and
| the success of that company is then partially enforced by
| the exclusivity of the patent. You don't need a non-compete
| if your employees have access to patented content, because
| they aren't legally allowed to reproduce it anyways.
|
| >Even for the type of companies that rely on execution,
| there will be important lessons learned, which ultimately
| become the "secret sauces"
|
| Can you give an example of this? I think it's unlikely that
| specific "lessons learned" could be so valuable. Sure,
| companies are afraid of losing their experienced employees
| - but all companies are afraid of that anyways. It has
| little to do with the idea of a "secret sauce", and
| everything to do with simple experience.
| j4yav wrote:
| Patents if they are really secret sauce. If your startup fails
| because someone finds out what you are working on then you are
| already doomed.
| josaka wrote:
| This is the right answer, and it has implications for the
| development of patent law: folks cheering the restrictions on
| NDAs should anticipate that doing so will tend to increase
| pressure on lawmakers to strengthen patent rights, as those
| investing in R&D lobby for other ways to protect their
| investments. Not saying we shouldn't weaken NDAs, though. The
| amazing last century of technical innovation emanating from
| California, which has relatively strong limits on NDAs, would
| suggest it's a good idea.
| tracyhenry wrote:
| I don't feel this is the right answer. Patents are very time-
| consuming. Lawsuits (esp against big players) are something
| most startups can't afford.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Consultant/freelancers frequently deal with:
|
| Client: "you can't work with competitors"
|
| Consultant: "ok, how do you define competitor?"
|
| Client: "Anyone that might compete with a line-of-business we
| have or plan to have"
|
| Consultant: "ok, can you list those lines of businesses?"
|
| Client: "no... some are in R&D phases... many won't even work
| out"
|
| Consultant: "can you just give us a list of competitors?"
|
| Client: "not really, because who knows what kind of company we'll
| be in 3 years!"
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| IMO, non-competes should always include cash payments to the
| former employee. For example, if your employer doesn't want you
| to go to a competitor for a year then they should pay you full
| salary plus the value of whatever benefits you had for that year
| to not work in your field.
| occz wrote:
| Agreed. A multiple of the total compensation of the competitor
| is warranted.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > Joe Biden says he's going to ask the Federal Trade Commission
| to try to ban non-compete agreements
|
| In the United States the Executive branch can't write their own
| law, even if it is to ban non-compete agreements.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Should be a requirement that, to be enforceable, a non-compete
| must pay the agreeing employee his salary for the duration of the
| agreement.
| heipei wrote:
| In Germany, a non-compete can only be enforced for up to two
| years and pays 50% of the last salary (by law).
| arcanus wrote:
| Why not 100%?
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| You don't think there should be any consideration for the
| fact the person is not performing any labor? They are still
| able to pursue employment in non competing fields.
|
| In a world where non-competes were funded 100% it seems
| like it should be the GOAL of every employee to be fired
| from a position where a non-compete needs to be enforced in
| order to secure extended paid vacations.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Society wants people to contribute productively. Stopping
| someone from working to protect business secrets is
| antisocial and bad for society.
|
| Really, companies should have to pay >100% salary as a
| disincentive to idling valuable labor.
| radiator wrote:
| It looks like it is "at least 50%" according to the law.
| drclau wrote:
| I believe this is true in most European countries, with minor
| variations.
| rytis wrote:
| not in the UK
| wwweston wrote:
| This feels like it starts to get to the heart of the matter.
| If you want to compel someone's activities, especially if it
| involves restricting their employment, seems pretty fair to
| compensate them throughout the period in which it applies.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yeah the good old garden leave. I wish.
| etothepii wrote:
| My 3 months in the garden was some of the best time of my
| life.
| filoleg wrote:
| That's how it usually works in finance/fintech with non-
| competes that extend beyond the period of employment (and not
| just for traders/analysts, it is the case for a good number of
| engineers and quants as well).
|
| You might not be getting the annual bonus (which is a major
| chunk of pay in finance), but you still get the full salary for
| the duration of the non-compete (usually 12-18mo). They also
| usually have a clause that it applies only to jobs in the same
| industry, so if you go from a finance shop to a FAANG company
| or another tech startup, then the non-compete is void, and you
| are welcome to pursue that opportunity without any 12-18mo
| timeouts (but your non-compete pay stops).
|
| That seems to be a reasonable compromise, because if you really
| want to continue working in finance, you are welcome to wait
| for 1-1.5 years while getting paid full salary (minus the
| annual bonus) for doing nothing. And if you want to start
| working again immediately, you are welcome to do so, as long as
| it is in an industry other than finance, and the non-compete
| pay stops (because non-compete at this point becomes void).
| noitpmeder wrote:
| This kind of leave really doesn't exist outside of finance, and
| even then most companies would rather let you go unless you
| actually know some critical secret sauce.
| 41209 wrote:
| I'd still rather they be banned.
|
| Say you start as a junior at 80k , next year you get an offer
| for 150k , but you can't take it. You'd end up with a large 1
| year resume gap, and losing 70k.
|
| The year of career stagnation wouldn't be worth it.
| gibba999 wrote:
| Or, you take a year to:
|
| - Get a Master's degree
|
| - Travel and see the world
|
| - Do consulting
|
| - Take a job in Indonasia
|
| - Teach
|
| - Develop a new open source project
|
| - Etc.
|
| The resume gap / career stagnation is a choice. It's rare
| that you can have a gap year like this. I totally don't feel
| bad about paid non-competes.
| 41209 wrote:
| What if you have kids to provide for ?
|
| You'd might rather have more money. If you desperately need
| to increase your income even paid non competes are a bad
| deal
| ghaff wrote:
| Some people might think that was a good deal to travel the
| world but not everyone. So you're at the peak of your career
| and you need to take a couple years off at significantly lower
| total comp (because no bonus/equity).
| deregulateMed wrote:
| Start a new career, start an unrelated company, do non profit
| work, do research, etc...
|
| I imagine these people have money, so what's making
| potentially an extra 200k? You make that in a year.
| ghaff wrote:
| You live in a serious bubble if you think the typical
| person can shrug, say "what's $200K," and casually leave or
| take a break from the field they've been earning a living
| in.
| deregulateMed wrote:
| We are talking about people who's company actually used
| the non compete.
|
| These are not typical people.
| ghaff wrote:
| There is absolutely no guarantee of this.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| You really underestimate. Even standard entry-level
| developers are under NCAs, and I've had a former
| colleague (who was certainly "typical", and an additional
| $200k would have been life changing for them) who was hit
| with one. I have many other colleagues (again, just
| "typical" people) who lost out on job offers because the
| new company didn't even want to deal with the threat of
| an NCA.
| grogenaut wrote:
| I had a non-compete when I was making $50k
| deregulateMed wrote:
| And did the company invoke it?
| hannasanarion wrote:
| If they didn't want to invoke it, they wouldn't have put
| it in the contract.
|
| Would you sign a contract that says I have the right to
| point a gun at you at all times, with only my unofficial
| assurances that I won't pull the trigger?
| simcop2387 wrote:
| This would mean that you can then also work in a related but
| not competing industry at the same time. It's not a no-work
| afterwords contract, but don't compete with us. that won't
| affect your total compensation then, or your career
| trajectory usually either. The idea is that a non-compete
| should only be used for someone it will actually matter to
| the business the, and not all the low level employees that
| don't have any impact on anything like that. right now you
| have tech support and call center employees with year long
| non-competes that prevents the, from working in another
| similar role at a new company,
| https://www.protocol.com/policy/tech-non-compete
| ghaff wrote:
| So I'm a senior scientist at a pharma company. I want a new
| job. Cool. I can't take another pharma or biotech job but
| maybe I can go to coding camp and get a job mining people's
| data.
| adventured wrote:
| > This would mean that you can then also work in a related
| but not competing industry at the same time.
|
| If they're going to do it at all, and limit cruelty in the
| equation as much as possible, it should be very limited to
| directly comparable and competing products (Windows vs
| MacOS; Google Search vs Bing; consumer desktop operating
| systems and consumer search as narrow categories), rather
| than the industry broadly. Most people have a narrow labor
| specialization and spend their work years building up
| expertise and reputation in an industry. Any denial of work
| potential and opportunity that targets an entire industry
| is akin to labor cruelty and should be viewed as a human
| rights violation.
| fallingknife wrote:
| But a non-compete doesn't mean that you have to take that
| time off. It means that you can't work for a competitor.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, but depending on employer or industry, that could be
| many/all other employers.
|
| Biologist/chemist working on novel drugs - pretty limited
| field.
|
| Developer at Amazon - Amazon does a bit of everything, I
| bet their legal team would prefer you didn't work
| elsewhere.
|
| As noted elsewhere, it's not even so much about an NDA/non-
| compete is enforceable - just the threat of legal action is
| enough to stop employees moving or stop other employers
| hiring people.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| In the current system you will never get wealthy from salary
| and bonuses, because companies are being taxed through
| workers by proxy and the pressure is for keeping salaries as
| low as possible. Only way to break through is to start own
| business and become lucky. Big companies keep lobbying for
| more red tape to keep new competition at bay.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Non-competes are pretty much banned in the only place that
| matters for tech (California). It's one of the factor that drove
| the emergence of Silicon Valley.
|
| If your local state/country doesn't have California like laws,
| maybe it's an indicator it's time to jump ship!
| cortesoft wrote:
| My feeling has always been that non-competes are ok as long as it
| is an entirely separate agreement from employment. For example,
| you can sign a contract for $100,000 that you won't work in field
| x for 2 years. If you decide to work in the field, you give up
| that money.
|
| The unfair thing is making it just a part of the standard
| employment contract.
| lupire wrote:
| I'd like to over you a job. It pays $50K/yr with an optional
| $100K/yr for a noncompete agreement. My competitor is offering
| $140K/yr.
| zatertip wrote:
| I'll take that combo. Quit on the first day, live on Bali for
| 2 years.
| benrbray wrote:
| > sign a contract for $100,000 that you won't work in field x
| for 2 years
|
| Wow, sign me up!
| cortesoft wrote:
| If it isn't worth it to the company to pay, then they should
| let the person work for a competitor.
| ghaff wrote:
| Most people are not in the position to take a couple years
| off for $100K or to work, for almost certainly lower pay, in
| an unrelated field assuming they can find a professional job.
| skohan wrote:
| It could be a really bad deal if you're basically throwing
| away 2 years of your career when you have maximum bargaining
| power
| Uehreka wrote:
| I have never heard of an employer detaching a noncompete from
| the terms of employment, much less offering anything like $100k
| as a carrot. If some employers do this, then cool, but I don't
| find a lot of merit in arguing about whether it's OK to do
| something that almost nobody does.
|
| Many many employers attach noncompetes to the terms of
| employment, won't modify them for anyone and have the leverage
| to make even developers sign it (the job market's good, but
| it's not that good). That's a bad state of affairs, and it
| really seems like employers won't drop this unless compelled
| to, we aren't going to be able to negotiate them into the deal
| you're describing.
| cortesoft wrote:
| My point is that I think the law should only honor non-
| competes that are in that form.
|
| This is how California's law actually works.... non-competes
| are only allowed if they are paid in this way.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| Non-competes in France are regulated by law. If you put one in
| the contract, it means that you have to compensate me (70% of
| total compensation if memory serves me right) during the time it
| is enforced.
|
| Since there is no way for me company to know where I am going, it
| may mean 70% of salary for free, if I go to a non competitor.
|
| It is rarely enforced, though.
|
| The second non compete (while working at a company) is very muddy
| waters though.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| I am intrigued by the framing of the 'banning' of non-competes as
| regulatory intervention. It seems to me like we would be asking
| the court to refuse to enforce a contract. But this refusal
| manifests as a distinct lack of intervention on the part of
| regulators.
|
| I.E. prior to this 'intervention' you could be hauled to court
| and/or jail for failure to meet a contractual obligation. Post
| 'intervention' nothing happens and you simply continue to search
| for a new job as you always had.
|
| I understand that in our given legal framework every change must
| be some kind of positive action, but it seems odd to me to frame
| it in conversation (as this article did) as a positive action
| rather than negative one which is how it actually manifests.
|
| I'll just finish by saying that I agree with the sentiment that
| non-competes should be unenforceable. If you do have company
| secrets an NDA has long standing precedent and is less intrusive.
| mattficke wrote:
| >The main idea of the non-compete agreement is that employers
| want to stop people from walking off the job and taking trade
| secrets to rival companies.
|
| I don't think this is quite right. The main idea is that hiring
| and developing employees is _hard_ and _expensive_ , and
| companies want to have a claim on the future labor of the
| employee because of the investment they made.
|
| In the tech industry, recruiting fees of 25% of the first year
| salary are common, which is an enormous amount of money and shows
| how valuable anything that accelerates the hiring process is.
|
| Banning non-competes is a good idea for essentially the same
| reason a low unemployment rate is good: companies have to compete
| against each other to be the best place to work, which improves
| compensation and conditions for workers. It's easier when your
| only competition is poverty and unemployment, but that's not a
| good outcome for society at large.
| wcunning wrote:
| Interesting anecdata: the automotive industry does not actively
| enforce any of this on engineering talent. Per one of the other
| comments, I am prevented from attempting to create a competitive
| product on my own time during my employment, but that's mostly an
| IP assignment clause and not directly non-compete. Honestly,
| they'd love for me to do a bunch of unpaid work that they'll
| assert ownership over, I'm sure. But, when I quit one of the Big
| 3 and moved to another (for better career movement, thank god), I
| didn't even have to live out my 2 weeks because I might steal IP,
| nevermind that I created a bunch of it, and no non-compete was
| mentioned. Similarly, lots of engineers move up and down from OEM
| to supplier and back again, so there's nothing directly tied to
| that either.
|
| The only example that I'm aware of in the industry at large was
| when Ford partnered with Argo AI, there was an agreement with
| Argo that they would not hire Ford engineers beyond the initial
| group going over as part of the partnership. My understanding,
| having no direct access to any agreements, was that this was
| fairly time limited, but did prevent me from applying at the
| time, though in retrospect, I'm grateful since Argo has a bad
| reputation for chewing up engineers.
|
| Final note: I'm curious if some rule along these lines would
| encourage more actions like the Google/Apple deal that wound up
| costing them in lawsuits later on -- specifically, would that
| kind of deal get more enforcement action and more scrutiny
| because it would be the last refuge after the non-compete if they
| were severely limited or banned?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| My state has severely limited non-compete agreements to the point
| that they're only narrowly enforceable, if at all.
|
| That didn't stop one of my previous employers from using non-
| compete scare tactics against employees. Many of us left in a
| large exodus when benefits and bonuses were cut and management
| made a number of other bad decisions.
|
| The company responded by sending remaining employees an e-mail
| with a list of competitors that they said would be covered by our
| non-compete agreement. The e-mail implied that if we wanted to
| leave for one of those companies we needed to get approval from
| the legal team before we moved, otherwise we might be at risk of
| being sued.
|
| My lawyer rolled his eyes when I showed it to him and explained
| that they wouldn't win due to my state's laws, but they could try
| to make my life difficult with legal proceedings if they wanted.
|
| The tactic worked enough to scare some of my old coworkers away
| from taking job offers at competitors, though. Some others also
| went into hiding and lied on their LinkedIn profiles to prevent
| their old employer from finding out they went to competitors.
|
| Having some clear, national guidelines that make non-competes a
| non-issue would do wonders for situations like this.
| iammisc wrote:
| There should be a phone number you can call that basically
| tells you the answer as to whether you should apply for a job
| and ignore the non-compete. It could just be a pre-recorded
| message saying "Yes".
|
| No state is going to want to protect monopolies over the
| employability of its citizens. No one wants you to become
| dependent on the government dole.
|
| The vast majority of non-competes are unenforceable. If you're
| unlucky enough to actually be in an enforceable one, the
| chances are you already have a relationship with a lawyer.
|
| Seriously, why do employees worry about this.
| ep103 wrote:
| Something like this happened to people who left my first job in
| the industry.
|
| They didn't have to win the lawsuit. The competitor that the
| employee went to fired the employee after they started.
| Presumably, it was because they didn't want any problems from
| the employee's previous employer, or just didn't want the
| headache at all.
| mountainriver wrote:
| What state is this?
| lekanwang wrote:
| This is a decent state-by-state overview of the
| enforceability of non-competes:
| https://www.wonder.legal/us/guide/what-is-the-
| enforceability...
| knappe wrote:
| California, in all likelihood.
|
| California Business and Professions Code Section 16600,
| "every contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging
| in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind is to
| that extent void."
| masklinn wrote:
| Probably not california, NCC applicability / legality is so
| restricted that I don't see how
|
| > they could try to make my life difficult with legal
| proceedings if they wanted.
|
| could work, the first judge involved would throw the entire
| thing out and threaten the company for wasting the court's
| time.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Isn't that simply a harassment? I would report employer to the
| police and ask for an injunction.
| iammisc wrote:
| If the employee told the employer to stop contacting them,
| then yes, it would be harassment.
| indymike wrote:
| > My state has severely limited non-compete agreements to the
| point that they're only narrowly enforceable, if at all.
|
| Same here, but that does not stop the former employer from
| filing suit and causing havoc for the newly hired employee and
| their employer. Every time it's happened to someone I've hired,
| it is a former manager or business owner who is personally
| angry at the former employee and is trying to harm them. Seems
| pretty pointless.
| gibba999 wrote:
| My experience is that (1) Most threats like this aren't legally
| credible (2) That doesn't stop employers from filing (and
| losing, if not settled) lawsuits.
|
| For most employees, a lost lawsuit means you lose 2 years of
| your life, get PTSD, and go bankrupt. You might recover legal
| fees after you've lost the house. Yay!
|
| If you've got a megabuck, you're okay. If you live paycheck to
| paycheck, you're SOL. If you're a high-income / low-savings
| immigrant from a low-income country, you're SOL too. You
| settle. It doesn't matter if they have no case. You settle.
|
| As a footnote, this dynamic does play out re: grad students
| versus elite universities, under NDA. Source: I know MIT does
| this from first-hand knowledge, and I have suspicions about a
| few peer schools.
| mattkrause wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the grad student NDAs?
|
| I'm surprised, because this seems like it would undercut the
| whole point of grad school (i.e., publishing) and it's _very_
| different from my experience (NDAs limited to patient data,
| etc).
| ghaff wrote:
| The very existence of a non-compete will also scare off some
| employers. I worked for a very small company for a number of
| years and we basically wouldn't even talk to anyone who had a
| non-compete even if it seemed low risk. Just wasn't worth it
| --especially if they were from a client.
| Meph504 wrote:
| > re: grad students versus elite universities, under NDA.
|
| I think it is important to not conflate NDA and non-compete,
| NDAs have a validate place, and are likely what should be
| used instead of non-competes in most situations.
| codingdave wrote:
| > might be at risk of being sued.
|
| Being alive puts you at risk of being sued. The question is
| whether they have a case. As you said, an actual attorney would
| roll their eyes, but people still get scared.
|
| I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it - don't let
| lawyers bully you. If they have no case, that is the end of the
| story. If they do have a case, it gets more nuanced. But most
| of the time, lawyers are just sending out letters as scare
| tactics, with no bite to them.
|
| Especially when it comes to non-competes, each jurisdiction is
| quite different. Where you live has a large impact on whether
| or not a lawyers pursuing a non-compete agreement actually have
| a case. Educate yourself on your local laws, ask an attorney,
| but don't let anyone bully you into holding back your own
| career moves.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| > Some others also went into hiding and lied on their LinkedIn
| profiles to prevent their old employer from finding out they
| went to competitors.
|
| I avoid telling my employer where I'm going when I leave.
| There's simply no advantage to me to reveal that information.
| You can just say your quiting to take some personal time and
| deal with burnout. Perhaps that personal time is a 2 day
| weekend before your next job begins.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| You don't even need to say that. My three lines I've used for
| every job are:
|
| The resignation letter simply reads: "Effective _today's
| date_ I hereby notify my employer of my intent to resign my
| position of _position_ on _date two weeks from today_ ".
| Signed and dated with nothing else.
|
| If asked why, the answer is "I've decided to seek
| opportunities elsewhere".
|
| If asked where, the answer is "I'd rather not say at this
| time".
|
| As you say, there's almost no benefits and only drawbacks to
| divulging any other information than that in most cases.
| mtnGoat wrote:
| hopefully they die sooner, rather than later. ive never signed
| one, never will.
|
| literally walked away from business deals and job contracts
| because of this.
|
| try to restrict me into the future beyond our agreement and you
| are not worth my time. don't tell me i cant feed my kids the best
| way i know how and we can always come to a deal, otherwise you
| are not my friend. i aint that desperate to make others wealthy.
| :X
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| I lived in Alabama for 4 years or so and at least at the time (I
| have no idea if it's changed since I left), their non-compete
| situation was garbage.
|
| They were valid and enforceable even if you got laid off or
| fired. One of my friends' mother got laid off in the 2008
| financial crisis from Bellsouth (or AT&T, I don't recall if the
| (re)merger was finished yet). She was told she couldn't work for
| any other telecom in the state for at least 18 months. She ended
| up going to stay with family in another state for that time so
| she could find another job, even though her husband and her son
| were in AL. It was a hard period for them.
|
| I've had a hatred of non-competes since for the most part. If you
| (a company) are afraid of losing key talent, maybe you should
| actively try to retain it rather than turning your company into a
| prison.
| brightball wrote:
| In right to work states, non-competes can't prevent you from
| earning a living.
| lostcolony wrote:
| De jure, maybe, but de facto it most certainly can, as the
| OP's anecdote attests to.
| iammisc wrote:
| My business law professor said to just ignore non-competes.
| Everyone knows the judge will toss it if it's preventing
| you from earning a living. Any state that allows non-
| competes has statutory provisions for earning a living. If
| not, this is part of the common law in every jurisdiction.
| Non-competes cannot conflict with the public policy. Except
| for very few instances in which the previous company must
| show that the competition produces _actual harm_ , they are
| completely unenforceable. Moreover, they must be
| geographically limited.
|
| The Alabama, entire state ban, is likely overly large. A
| citizen of Alabama has a right to work in Alabama. Maybe
| they can't work in Birmingham for a year or two. But they
| must be able to work elsewhere in the state. This one could
| safely be ignored.
|
| One thing I will note is that some companies want you to
| sign a contract upon leaving not to compete. Usually these
| are for some amount of money. These can be enforceable.
| However, they can't required for you to leave (although the
| bonus can be conditional on it). Don't sign these. They're
| dumb.
|
| Companies know this too. As do hiring companies. For some
| reason though (and companies don't want you wisening up),
| many employees fear their old employer and choose not to
| apply, get scared, and run away. This is toxic, and it
| ought to be prosecuted IMO, but in the meantime, you should
| ignore it.
|
| Source: https://www.bradley.com/insights/publications/2021/
| 03/everyt...
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Unless I were really a big deal, I probably would have just
| gone to another telecom anyway. They have to notice you're at
| the other company, then go through the trouble of suing you.
| For relatively low-level workers, I doubt it'd be worth the
| trouble.
|
| I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They have to notice you're at the other company, then go
| through the trouble of suing you. For relatively low-level
| workers, I doubt it'd be worth the trouble.
|
| IIRC, No, they just let the other company know about the non-
| compete, then suggest that once the new employer has that
| notice, continuing to employ you constitutes tortious
| interference for which the old employer might sue the new
| one. Then the new company decides whether you are worth a
| possible lawsuit. For relatively low-level workers, it's
| usually not worth the trouble -- for the new employer.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Non-competes undermine one of the main ideas underpinning
| capitalism: the free flow of labor. Otherwise, you're just a
| damned serf.
| etothepii wrote:
| I wonder if the "I have read the Terms and Conditions"
| checkbox has some responsibility for this.
|
| I'm constantly amazed at how many people don't seem to
| understand that a contract is a negotiation. Most people
| wouldn't dream of taking a job that didn't pay enough
| financially, but agree to jobs with awful terms and
| conditions because they didn't read. We are all used to
| contracts that are too long to understand.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Libertarians would permit people to sell themselves into
| slavery by contract. Another reason why libertarianism take
| too far is pure madness, and infantile fantasy.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| That's a feature, not a bug.
| saxman001 wrote:
| I think that non-competes can be valid in very narrow, very
| specific scopes. One of my friends has a job that involves
| evaluating companies and allocating millions of dollars of
| funding towards them. His contract states that he cannot go and
| work for the companies that he's evaluating for two years.
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