31–40 of 129 posts
The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
It always baffles me how much resistance there is to banning noncompetes every time this is proposed, and how that resistance lives right alongside “we want to be the next Silicon Valley”, even though pretty much every analysis of “what’s Silicon Valley’s secret sauce” cites the unenforceability of noncompetes as one of the most important factors. But maybe the ship is turning very slowly.
Is there actually substantial resistance to this? Or just a few manufactured counter-arguments from news outlets trying to do a both-sides take on this? Non-competes have been heavily limited or outright voided in California. That's an easy and obvious rebuttal to the Silicon Valley argument.
The flip side should be considered as well. There should be some sort of protection for small startup companies. A big company should not be able to steal an innovative startup's technology by hiring away the employees that worked on the product. That used to happen a lot when Bill Gates was running Microsoft, for example. Patents provide some protection, but it is flawed because a big company can put you out of busi…
It's also already unlawful to steal another company's assets when you leave. Besides, companies should file provisional patent applications as soon as they invent valuable proprietary technology to prevent the sort of subject matter leakage you mention.
It always baffles me how much resistance there is to banning noncompetes every time this is proposed, and how that resistance lives right alongside “we want to be the next Silicon Valley”, even though pretty much every analysis of “what’s Silicon Valley’s secret sauce” cites the unenforceability of noncompetes as one of the most important factors. But maybe the ship is turning very slowly.
Best I can do: Non-competes are (possibly) unenforceable anyway, so signing one maybe acts as a value signal for the employee? "I'd have to violate my non-compete, so in order to do that and permanently burn the bridge with my current company, you need to pay me $X + $Y."
Frankly I don't buy it, though, because it assumes too much about the rationality of all actors involved and the savviness of the employee during negotiations.
It’s not the noncompetes that’s the problem, it’s confidentiality agreements with extremely broad language. Learn about the legal principle of “inevitable disclosure”. It’s the idea you can’t work for a competitor because you can’t help yourself but violate an NDA
A win for Adam Smith capitalism.
The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
Why? They started one successful business. It seems good for society if they go on to start another.
It always baffles me how much resistance there is to banning noncompetes every time this is proposed, and how that resistance lives right alongside “we want to be the next Silicon Valley”, even though pretty much every analysis of “what’s Silicon Valley’s secret sauce” cites the unenforceability of noncompetes as one of the most important factors. But maybe the ship is turning very slowly.
Non-competes are almost always unenforceable. Never take money (although even then, they're still mostly useless), and just ignore them and no one is going to do anything. That was what my business law professor taught us. No court is going to enforce a non-compete if it means the person who cannot compete is going to be unable to support themselves. The only time it'll be enforced is if you're already independently…
The first part is probably usually true, because places where non-competes are enforceable generally will not enforce them if they are overly broad.
But for tech workers there are almost always other jobs that the worker can qualify for and pay similarly to their old job but are not covered by the non-compete and then then non-competes do get enforced even though the worker is not independently wealthy.
A fairly recent example [1].
[1] https://callaborlaw.com/blog/former-draftkings-employee-lose...
The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
Besides, competing would have meant doing exactly the same thing over again. What's the fun in that?
The only time I see non-competes as reasonable is when someone sells a business. It seems fair to put a territory restriction on a seller so the new owner doesn't have to immediately start competing against the person they bought out.
The non-competes I've signed have offered 60% of my base pay for six months (the length of the non-compete) if I cannot find a job because of the contract if the company exercise it.
They never have exercised it for me.