141–150 of 218 posts
Let's introduce reverse non-competes. Reverse non-compete forbids the employer to hire anyone who's directly competing with me on the labor market for one year after my resignation.
Question for those in the know: is a non-compete valid if you signed the template, but the company never got it back to you signed on their end? In other words, your signature is on it, but you've never seen their signature on it. (Company State = Texas... and I don't reside in Texas)
I've always refused to sign any contract with a non-compete. In every case, the employer has removed or voided it. The only exceptions were jobs in Chicago, and I walked away from two different jobs because they couldn't change their contract. I often don't even bring it up during the interview, until I get an offer. At that point if they're not willing to negotiate my basic rights as a worker, it's not a company I w…
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And I'd argue that this is one of the biggest reasons why the area was able to evolve from a couple of semiconductor companies into the world's most valuable business ecosystem. Most other states are too beholden to a few big companies and don't see how following suit will only help them over the long term.
Pure anecdote in support of your argument, from the top of my head, but you have to wonder how things would have gone if Shockley's traitorous eight could never have come into existence due to non-competes. No Fairchild? No FairChildren? Basically, no Silicon Valley. According to an Endeavor Insight report: in 2014 of the more than 130 Bay Area tech companies trading on the NASDAQ or the New York Stock Exchange, “70…
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Of course. It also encourages competition, especially from new startups. Imagine Facebook had to wait for a couple of years to be able to hire any senior engineers with the knowledge and skills to scale their services. They would lose momentum, and quite possibly fail as their service would be constrained by severe scaling and reliability issues. The reason Facebook and other unicorns were able to thrive in SV is bec…
Didn't some of them (Apple, Intel, Google and more) get busted for agreeing under the counter to not hire each others employees? https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-lawsuit/steve-jobs-...
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I'm a senior engineer, and as I said, I was never able to bargain away a single non-compete clause. Even with a smaller employer, you will need some bargaining power.
I was a mid-tier engineer and was able to bargain them away because I was often recruited based on my open source contributions and community work. It's a pretty easy sell to say: "You found out about me because of this work, and it's going to continue, or you're going to pay X for me to stop it for Y years."
Non-competes prevent you from working for your employer's commercial competitors. I.E. if you leave Uber, you can't go work for Lyft.
Also, it's naive to assume you can just "sell" an employer on a contractual change that goes against their goals.
Saying "I'm a software engineer, and I plan to continue being a software engineer after we part ways, instead of waiting tables" also sounds like a strong "sell", but it does not work based on my experience.
It's not about convincing anyone, it's about power and who has it.
Banning noncompete agreements is something California has been doing right since 1872 when they were first banned. Another thing California does right is refusing to honor noncompete agreements from other states.
We nailed it... Also, as a workers rights issue, always ask yourself if the company would do the same for you. If they ask you to sign a contract saying to give six weeks notice or something silly ask if they would give you six weeks notice of a layoff or termination. In the case of non-competes you should ask if they don't hire from their competitors too... If they're going to reduce YOUR compensation because of com…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course. It also encourages competition, especially from new startups. Imagine Facebook had to wait for a couple of years to be able to hire any senior engineers with the knowledge and skills to scale their services. They would lose momentum, and quite possibly fail as their service would be constrained by severe scaling and reliability issues. The reason Facebook and other unicorns were able to thrive in SV is bec…
Didn't some of them (Apple, Intel, Google and more) get busted for agreeing under the counter to not hire each others employees? https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-lawsuit/steve-jobs-...
I've always refused to sign any contract with a non-compete. In every case, the employer has removed or voided it. The only exceptions were jobs in Chicago, and I walked away from two different jobs because they couldn't change their contract. I often don't even bring it up during the interview, until I get an offer. At that point if they're not willing to negotiate my basic rights as a worker, it's not a company I w…
> I'm glad I've wasted their time That's an odd attitude. You've also wasted your own time, yes? I can see how it's problematic to bring it up ahead of time. "By the way, I won't sign a non-compete." Immediately the company is on alert: you plan to quit after learning their secrets and go to a competitor? It's like drug testing: obviously a violation of your rights, but why would I hire this one guy who refuses to ta…
That's an odd attitude. You've also wasted your own time, yes?
Wait, there's another approach.
Sign the non-compete, and let them sue you, if they even notice that is, after you're in the new place. I had a boss that did this (which I saw happen live) nonchalantly. And managers are worth going after more than individual contributors in many cases. In the most recent case they went after him and New Company's lawyers came to the rescue. For those readers not in the US, those of us commenting from within the US have different laws in different states. In New York State, the judges typically respect non-competes for one year (even if it says 1000 years in the contract).
One employer of mine tied stock options to the non-compete, in a totally separate document from the offer letter. There has to be something material, otherwise, what are they going to do, beat you up? A restraining order so you can't go to New Company?