Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment • Hacker News Board

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#131

Post by javert » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 10:20 AM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #130

javert wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's the right way around. Wikipedia has, basically, what it needs. I don't see how throwing more money at Wikipedia is going to accomplish anything.

Oh? And Zynga "needs" something? Or is going to accomplish anything nearly as worthwhile as Wikipedia? Or... ?

People enjoy the games, they pay for them, those payments accure to employees of the company and eventually investors who make it all possible. So the whole goal of the business is literally creating happiness.

The investors, having produced value, can then invest in something else.

The people playing the games are also producing value, because they earned their paychecks doing something productive for somebody.

Of course, all of this is true of every productive company and is readily evident in everyday life (unless you live under communism). You need to take an econ 101 course. Or maybe just pay attention.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#132

Post by gnohit » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 10:26 AM UTC

vinhboy wrote: post #65

tibbon wrote: post #49

A company I worked for recently had non-competes and non-solicit clauses. A new employees was negotiating their contract, and I told them to push back against the NC/CS clauses. I spoke with the management and asked why they needed them, "to prevent problems" they said. I pointed out that they didn't have the non-competes for their employees in California and asked if they had problems there. They weren't aware of an…

because lawyers...

In Hawaii before this law, lawyers were the only profession exempted from non-competes. Our lawyers in Hawaii are well trained and the many firms are very competitive. They were smart enough to exempt themselves.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#133

Post by richmarr » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 10:45 AM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #78

jacobheller wrote: post #55

A really good book to read on the subject is AnnaLee Saxenian's Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 ( http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition... ). It discusses why Route 128 failed while Silicon Valley flourished. A major part is that under California law, non-competes are not enforceable in California. As people moved freely between competing companies, t…

Yes - this is an instance where a law can help an ecosystem at the expense of individual players. In aggregate though, it's net neutral for most companies, since they benefit from being able to hire from competitors. The companies doing interesting things probably benefit, while the ones doing boring things get a little hurt. The (largely untrained) economist in me says that mobility of labor is very important for gr…

Completely agree with your awesome comment except for one niggle...

> it's net neutral for most companies

My take is that if there were only two companies this would be true. Considering that no company employs more than a tiny fraction of the skilled labour market the vast majority of labour innovation occurs elsewhere.

A company would have to be doing an immense amount of innovation in order to not have a net benefit from free movement of labour.

We could talk about whether the Googles, NSAs, or Amazons of the world hit this threshold, but I'd argue that nobody else does.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#134

Post by fulafel » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 11:06 AM UTC

How does it work out in the US wrt what you can bring with you to a new employer, where non-compete agreements are outlawed? Is all information then free game? European countries tend to have it in national legislation that you can't disclose important trade secrets.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#135

Post by yourapostasy » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 11:30 AM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #117

vinhboy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because lawyers...

Not just funny, but true. When you invite a lawyer into a discussion, what is most straightforward way for them to show they are contributing? More clauses. My firm's done negotiations with banks, and they all do the same vanilla business. Some have lawyers very close to the process, and some keep them at a distance. Of course there's always more back-and-forth when the lawyers are there, even though the business is…

In my personal experience, that "wtf clause" embedding is because lawyers are at the coalface of dealing with the assholes of the business world. When it comes to rules-based systems like law, the assholes of the world are the ones that drive fractal-like complexity in the rulesets, with their continuous seeking of edge cases to externalize costs upon everyone else they can possibly unload to while profiting from finding said edge cases, and the subsequent response by the body of law or by a law instrument to counter that behavior. In other words, the assholes work the contract instead of the actual relationship.

We need something like Iain Banks' envisioned "slap drone" for the assholes, but in the meantime, I'll settle for discreetly negotiated relationships that create exceptions for my company. Law also needs to evolve more formalisms around invocation of privacy and other personal space / personal resource (time, especially) concepts that are currently not well defined at the moment, but are rife with predation by the assholes.

I have found company counsel to always be willing to strike clauses for me if I negotiate with them amicably and agreeably, and preemptively provide them a "trust but verify" action they can perform that absolutely cannot be faked by an asshole participant. Clauses ranging from "all your bases are belong to us" IP seizures, sky-high insurance requirements, invasive financial reporting, you name it I've probably seen it, have all be negotiated away in this manner.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#136

Post by leereeves » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 12:41 PM UTC

jon-wood wrote: post #108

Sadly the most important ideas are rarely the best funded. For example Zynga has vastly more funds at their disposal than Wikipedia, and I'd challenge anyone to argue that's the right way round.

Including the value of donations of free labor, I suspect Wikipedia is much better funded than Zynga.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#137

Post by new1234567 » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 12:44 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #78

jacobheller wrote: post #55

A really good book to read on the subject is AnnaLee Saxenian's Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 ( http://www.amazon.com/Regional-Advantage-Culture-Competition... ). It discusses why Route 128 failed while Silicon Valley flourished. A major part is that under California law, non-competes are not enforceable in California. As people moved freely between competing companies, t…

Yes - this is an instance where a law can help an ecosystem at the expense of individual players. In aggregate though, it's net neutral for most companies, since they benefit from being able to hire from competitors. The companies doing interesting things probably benefit, while the ones doing boring things get a little hurt. The (largely untrained) economist in me says that mobility of labor is very important for gr…

It's not a net neutral for most companies. It's a huge benefit for all the companies in that area. Skilled professionals have a choice of region and company to work in. IF they choose one with better terms for them, then that region will have a more skilled pool of workers. This benefits companies in that region. One could argue that the stronger ecosystem and pool of employees creates significant benefits that outweigh any corporate advantage due to restricting employee mobility. That's what the above reference is arguing.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#138

Post by Avshalom » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 12:46 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #66

tracker1 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to establish a constitutional amendment that explicitly states that non-living entities (companies, corporations, etc) are not legally allowed to express opinions in so far as they donate to PACs or directly to campaigns. Also, that the congress or the states may limit the rights that non-living entities have beyond what an individual who works for or owns a non-living entity has. "Corporate Personhoo…

On the contrary, if corporations didn't have personhood, we could not sue them when they did wrong, or enter into contracts with them. Personhood has its own challenges for sure, but it originates more to protect people than it does to advantage corporations.

There is nothing in the constitution that says we can't sue legal constructs which means that while tort law and contract law might need to be updated (and while not a lawyer I suspect there is already a lot of parallel law for these cases because corporate personhood is a leaky abstraction) it certainly wouldn't be impossible.

And of course this ignores the fact that corporations with personhood are not the only way to organize a company or the only way to limit liability.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#139

Post by njharman » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 1:13 PM UTC

dia80 wrote: post #124

skarap wrote: post #122

This is good development! I'm not sure how effective the law will be though. As others mentioned, those agreements are hard/impossible to enforce in court, part of the reason of which is that they are completely one-sided, vague and almost enslaving (we own whatever you create also in your own time, can't compete directly/indirectly for 10 years after leaving, can't use anything your learned while working for us...).…

This only possible because companies want to be able to fire their employees quickly so that means the employees can leave quickly. I know of one place (in the UK) with a one year notice term. You can't leave quickly so their business is secure but you are secure too as they have to give 12 months notice before letting you go.

How is this enforceable? Do they get constables to round you up and handcuff you to desk? What if they just sit there all day doing nothing, they can't be fired for 1 yr?

I can't imagine anything forcing someone to work. I can see something like loose retirement, stock options, whatever if not giving 1 yr notice.

Re: Hawaii Bans Non-Compete and Non-Solicit Clauses in High-Tech Employment

#140

Post by jegutman » Thu, Aug 06, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #113

tracker1 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think the cost of food is only 15% more? That's funny.. still not enough to offset the cost of housing in SF though. Been looking at moving out to San Jose (to work in Los Gatos, that's expensive to live in), and need to make about 75% more to offset the cost of housing and taxes than I do in Phoenix. I totally understand why some large companies would put their IT hubs in Texas or Arizona now. Relative to the co…

What are you talking about? I was pointing out how expensive SF is and how you might hit a 15% higher food cost in Hawaii than SF. But that will be offset by the massive amount you will save in rent.

Okay, but if you're only talking about SF then that's pretty silly. Because there are parts of the bay area that are much cheaper although I get that even they are expensive. But if you're paying to live in SF proper or Palo Alto proper you're paying a premium for either a low commute or to be around other tech people or both. You can find places that are affordable in plenty of parts of the east bay.