81–90 of 223 posts
The text of the contract is unambiguous. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have signed it.
That's not quite how the law works.
Noncompetes writ large are terrible policy. However, I do think at a given level of seniority/responsibility, they’re reasonable, subject to the usual limitations of time and place. He worked for AWS for ~18 months and then shopped himself to a direct competitor.
The text of the contract is unambiguous. If you didn't like it, you shouldn't have signed it.
You know you're cool when you need a lawyer to change jobs. I think it would be reasonable to allow non-competes, however, the company should have to keep paying you your full compensation (salary, stock, bonuses, etc) for as long as they keep you from being employed. Sure, give the old employer veto power for a new job as long as they keep paying them for the lockout period.
That's fairly common in investment banking and is called "gardening leave". My understanding is that in banking you get your salary but not your bonus during the gardening leave period.
Ugh, this garbage again. AWS came after someone I had hired trying to enforce the same non-compete, under more or less the same circumstances (Washington-based employee, working remote out of California). In the process I learned a bunch about this non-compete, and in particular about Amazon's behavior with respect to it: as of 2012, they had tried to enforce this non-compete "hundreds" of times -- and to the knowled…
This practice needs to stop. If they dont want their employees poached they should pay to keep.
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 wit…
As a former lawyer, this is a very good policy to have.
Alarm bells should be going off if someone tries to browbeat you into accepting "standard terms" on the basis that "they're not enforced".
You know you're cool when you need a lawyer to change jobs. I think it would be reasonable to allow non-competes, however, the company should have to keep paying you your full compensation (salary, stock, bonuses, etc) for as long as they keep you from being employed. Sure, give the old employer veto power for a new job as long as they keep paying them for the lockout period.
In fact, lack of noncompetes is probably one of the biggest reasons Silicon Valley was able to take off in the 1950s-60s when people were constantly leaving their jobs to start new chip companies, starting with the original "traitorous 8" who founded Fairchild Semiconductor.
There just aren't good arguments for noncompetes. People often bring up trade secrets, but that's not convincing -- there are already laws against stealing trade secrets, so you don't need noncompetes for that. Look at Anthony Levandowski as a high-profile example of someone who stole trade secrets in California and got nailed.
It's ironic seeing so many people in this thread being against non-competes, yet seeing so few people for unionizing in other HN threads.
The perception seems to be that unions hurt well performing employees more than they help. Non-competes are perceived as hurting well performing employees. Why is it surprising that the same group, which perceives itself as well performing employees, would oppose both?
What you perform well at today won't necessarily be valuable in the future.
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…
Noncompetes are only about preventing talent from working for the competition. They aren't really about protecting secrets, because those are already protected. There are laws against stealing trade secrets, and NDAs in addition to those laws.