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The case for banning non-competes

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Re: The case for banning non-competes

#321

Post by cannabis_sam »

mabbo wrote: post #23

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 mak…

> 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.

Why not? If a single developer can compete with the company that employs them, by only using their spare time, it sounds like that company could really use some competition..

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#322

Post by Akronymus »

trentnix wrote: post #62
mabbo wrote: post #23

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 mak…

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)…

> They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone" and "have no intentions to",...

For me, I have basically the same thing, but when I brought that up they straight up told me it'd be non-enforcable for the most part [1], along with that they put it there, because they had some people who started there just to get access to some expensive training, then left for a competitor/started their own company.

[1] which is actually the case

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#323

Post by lamontcg »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #226
lamontcg wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

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.

That is not a good reason for every software engineer at the company to be under overly-broad non-competes.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#324

Post by ryukafalz »

HWR_14 wrote: post #207
ryukafalz wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The code that you used at work. If you make something outside work, and never actually use it in your employer's codebases, they don't get a license. Whatever you do use in your work at your employer, they do get a license to. Which seems fair IMO, and avoids the pitfall of "wait when did you write this and can we use it?"

I'd much prefer this to a noncompete.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#325

Post by HWR_14 »

ryukafalz wrote: post #324
HWR_14 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The code that you used at work . If you make something outside work, and never actually use it in your employer's codebases, they don't get a license. Whatever you do use in your work at your employer, they do get a license to. Which seems fair IMO, and avoids the pitfall of "wait when did you write this and can we use it?" I'd much prefer this to a noncompete.

I understand what you're saying. But again, it seems strange to me that previously existing code/patents/IP would default to the company if you were directed to include it. It doesn't avoid the pitfall you suggested, it moves it so that it now becomes "think about it every time you are asked to do something at work" instead of "one time while signing a contract"

And the Theranos contract had no such limitations (that I could see) of opting in to using it in the company. Just "we can use any of your patents you had at the time you worked here, thanks".

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#326

Post by Scarblac »

rovr138 wrote: post #84
Scarblac wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>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?

There is no protection for ideas, only for authorship.

So what you write at work is your work's, what you write elsewhere is not, by default.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#327

Post by wolverine876 »

ripley12 wrote: post #320
majormajor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn’t seem odd to me. People do what’s best for them, and even if they underatand the dysfunction of North American urban planning well they’re not in a position to fix it.

> People do what’s best for them

People have many motives, including themselves, their communities, their businesses, their countries, their co-workers and neighbors, strangers on the street, etc. If they only acted selfishly, there would be no community, country, business, etc.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#328

Post by silexia »

I am an employer with 180 employees and we absolutely should ban non competes. Doing so would increase competition throughout the market and the to better products for consumers and much better work lives for workers.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#329

Post by xyzzy21 »

In California they are already illegal except at an executive level. As is working on your own as long as your use your own time, materials and resources, while working for a company.

I think these are some of the few things the California does right; they definitely hit it out of the ball park. This dates back to the 1960s though, so there's no attribution to the current residents or government - I'd guess they'd love to get rid of it these days.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#330

Post by xyzzy21 »

trentnix wrote: post #62
mabbo wrote: post #23

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 mak…

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)…

> 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?

Great answer BTW!

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