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Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

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Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#11

Post by myalphabet »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #8

There is a chance that some people with a history worth sharing might not be, and never be, in a position to talk. I personally think that non-compete agreements are a strange beast. On one side, you want to avoid people "switching sides" and bring important secrets with them, possibly the reason why they've been hired by a competitor. On the other side, you want a competitive job market, so that people would get the…

Agreed. I'm generally uncomfortable with noncompetes and especially with Amazon's practice of making every employee sign one. Unless it's a really special case where a team is working on something truly groundbreaking and secret, I don't see what Amazon is really afraid of if some random developer leaves and goes to a competitor.

However, I do have to say that their argument as stated in this article does seem like a valid case for a noncompete. From the article:

>“Virtually every day, Hall worked with Amazon’s most senior cloud executives to create and execute those plans. As a result, he was entrusted with an unusually broad view into Amazon’s cloud product plans; its priorities; and its competitive strategy.”

Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#12

Post by myalphabet »

m0zg wrote: post #10
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #8

There is a chance that some people with a history worth sharing might not be, and never be, in a position to talk. I personally think that non-compete agreements are a strange beast. On one side, you want to avoid people "switching sides" and bring important secrets with them, possibly the reason why they've been hired by a competitor. On the other side, you want a competitive job market, so that people would get the…

> bring important secrets with them BS. That's what NDAs are for.

An NDA is practically unenforceable in this situation, which is the entire point a noncompete is a thing. Who is going to snitch on them for revealing AWS secrets to Google and violating the NDA? Another Google exec?

Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#14

Post by sadsadsadsad »

myalphabet wrote: post #11
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #8

There is a chance that some people with a history worth sharing might not be, and never be, in a position to talk. I personally think that non-compete agreements are a strange beast. On one side, you want to avoid people "switching sides" and bring important secrets with them, possibly the reason why they've been hired by a competitor. On the other side, you want a competitive job market, so that people would get the…

Agreed. I'm generally uncomfortable with noncompetes and especially with Amazon's practice of making every employee sign one. Unless it's a really special case where a team is working on something truly groundbreaking and secret, I don't see what Amazon is really afraid of if some random developer leaves and goes to a competitor. However, I do have to say that their argument as stated in this article does seem like a…

non-competes are a great way to spot a crap company from a mile away. worked at a little startup in a domain no one cared about and they made interns sign damn non-competes.

Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#18

Post by kelnos »

hm8 wrote: post #5

It's interesting to see one of the basis of defense is promises made during offer stage. Anecdotally speaking, and I am not remotely close to Hall's position or responsibilities (an engineer) and in the past, the hiring team has always led me to believe that the non-competes are a standard clause and are not likely to be enforced. On a separate note, anybody knows if Google would help with legal defense of Hall or ig…

> the hiring team has always led me to believe that the non-competes are a standard clause and are not likely to be enforced.

My policy is: "Hey, if you don't plan on enforcing it, let's remove it from the contract... oh, you're not allowed to remove it? I guess we're done talking then." Fortunately I live in CA where they're not legally enforceable anyway.

> On a separate note, anybody knows if Google would help with legal defense of Hall or ignore this as a private matter?

It's certainly in Google's best interest that the suit goes well for Hall, so I imagine Google's legal counsel would represent him. The only way I'd figure they wouldn't get involved is if doing so would make it more likely that there'd be a bad outcome for some reason.

Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#19

Post by ctvo »

julianeon wrote: post #16

Here's some Tweets about it, the news story + commentary + Hall's humorous response ("some personal news"). http://www.mediazed.com/aws-sues.html disclaimer: this is my own site.

Don't appreciate you linking your own property that offers little new information except the rehash without an explicit disclaimer.

Re: Amazon sues former AWS marketing VP Brian Hall after he takes Google Cloud job

#20

Post by kelnos »

adrr wrote: post #13

He should have moved to a California first. Quite easy with covid19 and remote work being required.

I doubt that would have helped, given that he signed the agreement while a resident of a jurisdiction where it was valid.

Regardless, I wouldn't uproot myself (and my family, if I had one) for something like this.

Non-competes are an abomination and need to go, everywhere. The only alternative I'd accept is what's done in the finance world: you basically get a paid vacation for the term of your non-compete.

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