New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy • Hacker News Board

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#261

Post by juped » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

caskstrength wrote: post #201

vgatherps wrote: post #26

Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees. The tw…

> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Cry me a river. If knowledge of some particular employees worth so much to the quant firms, then they should pay them not to leave accordingly.

to the struggle SWEs who exaggerate your salary on HN and are upvoting this comment to the top: please stop and think for a second

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#262

Post by kube-system » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #234

kube-system wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not the case, very few civil legal disputes go to court, particularly if they are BS. For a total BS claim, it usually doesn’t take more than calling their bluff. Or just ignoring it. Employers usually just bet on people just following the language and not challenging it because they think it’s valid and they think they’ll have to go to court. In reality, a business doesn’t want to spend tens of thousands of d…

> very few civil legal disputes go to court This is much more often going to be true because the dispute was never made in the first place, because of the risk it would entail to a low wage worker. They cannot afford—for reasons of time, money, health, education—to even threaten to take an employer to court. Your argument sounds logical, but is unfortunately unaware of how real world pressures distort systems for rec…

I’m aware that they are very useful as an empty threat.

However, the reality here is not likely that a sandwich shop employee would have to “threaten to take an employer to court”.

The most likely scenario is that the hiring manager doesn’t even realize that boilerplate is in their employment agreement. The second most likely is that the employer grumbles about the employee leaving and that’s as far as it goes.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#263

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

charcircuit wrote: post #229

caskstrength wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Cry me a river. If knowledge of some particular employees worth so much to the quant firms, then they should pay them not to leave accordingly.

You can work at 2 companies without leaving either.

presumably the noncompete wouldn't apply then, if the two companies were not competing, and then you wouldn't need to pay them at all.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#264

Post by tester756 » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #260

hamandcheese wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge of a secret does not imply that you provide value.

clearly there's value in the secret if you're making them sign a noncompete. The proposal is just to ask firms to put money where their mouths are.

He says that just because someone knows a secret, then it doesnt mean that he brings value/$$$ to the company

They should pay him 500k just because he knows a secret? even if he's making just 50k to the company?

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#265

Post by smabie » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:17 PM UTC

gosub100 wrote: post #254

gmerc wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it make sense. Pay employees for their work and they’ll stick around.

Free market for me (to trade securities), but not for thee (to trade your skills).

Free markets allow contracts that are upheld by the government though?

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#266

Post by kube-system » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

pxeboot wrote: post #240

kube-system wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're imagining that non-competes are there to protect proprietary know-how. Legally speaking, that is often the case. Many states require a noncompete to have a “legitimate business reason”, and proprietary knowledge is the most common legitimate reason used. I suspect judges in most states would invalidate a noncompete for a sandwich shop worker. The legal purpose of these clauses is to keep high paid workers fr…

> A subway franchise ain’t gonna hire some PI to figure out where a former front-line employee got a new job. No, but they might use The Work Number or a similar service.

I doubt a hiring manager at a subway is going to do that.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#267

Post by thatguysaguy » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

vgatherps wrote: post #26

Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees. The tw…

Are quant firms positive sum for society? I can imagine that some trading leads to goods being priced more efficiently or w/e but I doubt the level of alpha these firms are chasing has positive externalities. If not, you should shouldn't really care about this hurting their industry.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#268

Post by drivebycomment » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:21 PM UTC

vachina wrote: post #51

Sorry if this is a stupid question, how does a noncompete gets enforced anyway? Unless you’re a person legally required to make public your job, I don’t see how any private entities can trace your work history.

Lawsuit is common.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/03/10/noncompet...

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#269

Post by Clubber » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

tester756 wrote: post #264

bobthepanda wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

clearly there's value in the secret if you're making them sign a noncompete. The proposal is just to ask firms to put money where their mouths are.

He says that just because someone knows a secret, then it doesnt mean that he brings value/$$$ to the company They should pay him 500k just because he knows a secret? even if he's making just 50k to the company?

They should pay him whatever he would make going somewhere else. Expecting someone to not work in their career field for 1-5 years and not get compensated for that is silly.

Re: New York may ban noncompete employment agreements and Wall Street is not happy

#270

Post by tomp » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

vgatherps wrote: post #26

Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees. The tw…

Quant firms have already adapted years ago.

Now they don't have 6-24m non-competes anymore, but 6-24m notice periods. You're paid full salary (incl bonus) but you don't work ("gardening leave") and obviously can't work for a competitor (because you can have a non-compete while you're employed).