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

fortune.com

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

#271

Post by tomp »

izacus wrote: post #68
infecto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General strategies of trading on financial markets. Entirely different than working at Google.

And what benefit does the economy and society get by allowing monopolization of these strategies by a single company at the expense of basic right for workers to switch jobs to the ones that pay them the most? It sounds so profoundly anti-capitalist - if the knowledge of certain strategy is so important, the employee should be retained by paying them more and giving them better perks instead of enforced labor contrac…

I'd say it's the opposite, non-competes (or similar agreements) actually prevent monopolisation.

Otherwise, the biggest firms (e.g. Millenium, Citadel) could simply "buy out" any already-successful researcher, offering them more money (either in terms of % of profit, or - more importantly as it scales with size (for many strategies) - offering more capital to trade with.

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

#272

Post by standardUser »

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?

Obviously companies think it is worth a lot for certain employees to be quiet, so they pay accordingly. There is no "should" going on here, there is only what the two parties agree to.

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

#273

Post by hackerlight »

bachmeier wrote: post #39
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. So the solution is that employees should only be able to work for one employer in their career? I wouldn't disagree with this argument if the noncompete…

Non-competes should be regulated so the person is paid a full salary (or paid the equivalent of the last year's total comp) if the employer wants to enforce it, and have a max duration say 1 or 2 years. I don't see a problem if it's done like that.

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

#274

Post by ghaff »

tomp wrote: post #270
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).

So what's the incentive to keep working under those conditions?

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

#275

Post by dragonwriter »

hackerlight wrote: post #273
bachmeier wrote: post #39

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. So the solution is that employees should only be able to work for one employer in their career? I wouldn't disagree with this argument if the noncompete…

Non-competes should be regulated so the person is paid a full salary (or paid the equivalent of the last year's total comp) if the employer wants to enforce it, and have a max duration say 1 or 2 years. I don't see a problem if it's done like that.

> Non-competes should be regulated so the person is paid a full salary if the employer wants to enforce it, and have a max duration say 1 or 2 years. I don't see a problem if it's done like that.

That's just employment, so its effectively the status quo in places with a ban on noncompetes. You can absolutely hire someone as an employee, when their only job duty is not to compete with you. You can even contract such employment for a set term. The problem, of course, is that employers want noncompensated noncompetes and at-will, no-set-term employment.

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

#276

Post by bdowling »

matwood wrote: post #71
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…

Non-competes have only ever made sense where the employee is compensated for signing. Codifying this change would immediately make companies stop with blanket non-competes, and only have them on key people. While not impossible, non-competes without compensation are already hard to enforce as judges don't look kindly on preventing people from earning a living. The problem is the asymmetry of power let companies bully…

If judges start to throw out non-compete agreements that don’t have separate compensation (apart from usually salary/experience), then you will just see companies explicitly write their contracts such that that X dollars are explicitly for the non-compete agreement.

At least in some industries, however, there is a consumer protection/public policy argument against non-compete agreements, where: (1) there is no legitimate property interest to protect (e.g., the “trade secrets” held by the companies aren’t trade secrets at all because every company in the industry knows them), and (2) it is bad for consumers/against public policy to allow companies to use non-compete agreements to stifle competition where there is no legitimate property interest to protect.

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

#277

Post by mistrial9 »

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?

LOL - you have stumbled upon the pay grades for security and executive management directly ! they absolutely are paid more to participate but stay quiet. It is a daily requirement.

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

#278

Post by tomp »

ghaff wrote: post #274
tomp wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

So what's the incentive to keep working under those conditions?

I guess bigger and better bonuses in the future?

Like, why would you quite and semi-retire for 1-2 years when you can keep working for like 5 years and actually retire?

(I'm just LARPing, I have been out of the industry for a few years by now...)

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

#279

Post by noelwelsh »

bradleyjg wrote: post #146
sgift wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s quite a civilized system and I think the law ought to leave it alone, (..) Or codify it. Imho the better alternative. One should never assume that companies won't try to change the system to the detriment of the employee if they see a chance.

One thing I think is great about the finance industry is that the CEOs don’t pretend that humanity is split into two subspecies: executives and peons. At other companies CEOs secure themselves giant equity packages to “retain the best talent and align shareholder interests” and then think they can motivate rank and file employees with t-shirts, “the mission,” and shoutouts during all hands. In finance, CEOs acknowled…

If you operate in a zero-sum game, like most trading in financial markets, there is no way you can pretend you are contributing to society. There is literally nothing else but the money that could be the goal of the organization. This does not mean that all organizations make no contribution to society. Nobody works at MSF, for example, just for the money.

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

#280

Post by mancerayder »

ghaff wrote: post #274
tomp wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

So what's the incentive to keep working under those conditions?

Other than getting paid without working for 6-24 months? Did I misread?
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