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Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

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Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#121

Post by [deleted] »

schmichael wrote: post #112
tianqi wrote: post #45

I think the Chinese law is effective in this regard: in order to maintain any non-competition agreement, the company must continue to pay you a monthly compensation amount equal to 30% of your total monthly income when you were at the company. Whenever the payment stops, the non-competition agreement is automatically void.

Oregon at least makes it 50% IIRC. Anything less than 100% seems useless though. Usually when taking a new job in the same industry you expect a pay bump, so even a 100% rate is likely leaving money on the table.

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#122

Post by kccqzy »

thw09j9m wrote: post #74
dylan604 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like something ripe for being gamed. How do they protect from someone just quitting and continuing to get paid?

They're not obligated to enforce the non-compete. If you don't have any sensitive information to take to a competitor, they might not give you any garden leave. OTOH, I've seen non-competes as long as 2.5 years from places like Citadel.

What's worse is actually those non-competes with a variable period. The company doesn't have to tell you in advance how long it will be; only when you hand in your resignation letter will they tell you. It entirely serves to make your job hunt more difficult.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#123

Post by benjamincburns »

marcosdumay wrote: post #61
tianqi wrote: post #45

I think the Chinese law is effective in this regard: in order to maintain any non-competition agreement, the company must continue to pay you a monthly compensation amount equal to 30% of your total monthly income when you were at the company. Whenever the payment stops, the non-competition agreement is automatically void.

Or the Brazilian law, that requires 100% compensation, and puts the onus on the company to prove that the non-compete is necessary before it can be enforced. If you ever see one of those contracts here, it's usually usually for a very reasonable situation and a well paid position.

I generally ask for 150% - usually on the expectation that it’ll make the non-compete go away.

It’s not at all a ridiculous ask, either. I’ve made a career out of going after high-impact roles in whatever is the fastest growing area of technology at the time. The non-compete isn’t just asking me to sacrifice the income from my next role, it’s asking me to sacrifice the experience as well. It also limits my ability to renegotiate comp while on the job, because they know your BATNA isn’t to just go get a better offer from a competitor.

If a company wants me to give all of that up, I’m sure as shit not doing it just for the privilege of working for them.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#124

Post by amatecha »

josephcsible wrote: post #77

I wish "inevitable disclosure" were totally turned on its head. If I were in charge, proving inevitable disclosure would happen would result in nullifying the NDA instead.

Right, as in "I literally cannot comply with this"? Makes sense.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#125

Post by jjallen »

tianqi wrote: post #45

I think the Chinese law is effective in this regard: in order to maintain any non-competition agreement, the company must continue to pay you a monthly compensation amount equal to 30% of your total monthly income when you were at the company. Whenever the payment stops, the non-competition agreement is automatically void.

Then the employee is only making 30% and presumably not working elsewhere or that would defeat the purpose. So how is this a good approach? I would get 80% or more but don’t see how this is effective.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#126

Post by inetknght »

thfuran wrote: post #119
BobbyTables2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect our primary school upbringing of “follow the rules” holds a lot of people back. Seems like a lot of successful people in business know exactly how far they can step over the line without suffering serious consequences.

Societies where no one has any regard for rules aren't great either.

You can't make billions of dollars by following rules...

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#127

Post by kelnos »

v5v3 wrote: post #99
whiplash451 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve seen this is France and UK but it lasts only a few months and no you can’t refuse the payment - but the company can refuse to pay and set you free.

In UK it's called gardening leave. A period when you are still employed but not at work and can't join another company without agreement. Uk law generally is that non compete clause is ok, if the length of time is reasonable. But you can't stop a person with a trade from applying that trade unreasonably. Most tend to be 3-6 months. Normally it's to stop a person leaving from stealing clients.

US finance has the same thing, and also calls it gardening leave. In our case I think it's reasonably common for it to be as long as a year.

Downside for finance folks is that the usually make a decent chunk of their compensation through bonuses, not their base salary. So their gardening-leave pay ends up being quite a pay cut, and while they're "gardening", they're out of the game for a year and their skills/knowledge becomes a little out of date.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#129

Post by kelnos »

So tired of this garbage. I think non-competes (and the legal concept of inevitable disclosure) should just be banned completely. Sure, some things (like taking customer lists when you leave a company) are messed up and should be barred, but companies should just be required to accept the fact that their employees will take some "proprietary" knowledge/information with them to their next job.

I don't even think that non-competes should be allowed for higher level employees/executives. Everyone deserves the right to change jobs whenever they want to.

Re: Tell HN: Beware confidentiality agreements that act as lifetime non competes

#130

Post by 93po »

airocker wrote: post #128

So if you are against this, you are okay with Coca Cola’s secret to be divulged by any employee to any competitor? If you cannot let companies maintain trade secrets, you may as well close them down.

as far as i can tell there are a million sodas that are extremely close to coca cola and coca cola is still doing just fine
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