Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 269 posts

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

#151

Post by baobun »

sircastor wrote: post #137
93po wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Getting off topic, there's an interesting This American Life story about the Coca Cola formula, and why there are many extremely close formulas, but no exact replicas. [1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/427/original-recipe

My head canon of the secret recipe is the Kung Fu Panda ending.

Protagonist gets to open the vault of secret formula after decades working their way to the top. Inside is a Coke label with the ingredients part unprinted.

It was always the brand.

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

#152

Post by airocker »

baobun wrote: post #151
sircastor wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting off topic, there's an interesting This American Life story about the Coca Cola formula, and why there are many extremely close formulas, but no exact replicas. [1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/427/original-recipe

My head canon of the secret recipe is the Kung Fu Panda ending. Protagonist gets to open the vault of secret formula after decades working their way to the top. Inside is a Coke label with the ingredients part unprinted. It was always the brand.

Brand takes money to build. IF an employee took the secret to their rich uncle when coke was small, we would not be talking about Coke. Whatever small the formula was.

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

#154

Post by ghaff »

const_cast wrote: post #150
ghaff wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I've known companies in the IT industry that took a very hard line on non-competes. Whether they won in court, I don't know. But I've know people who took a year off rather than involving the lawyers. Small pretty well-defined segment of the industry and a couple of the big players apparently did take it seriously. (Never worked for either.)

This is exactly what the company is hoping for. In actuality, you can put literally anything in a contract. Sell your first born baby, sacrifice a goat, whatever. Signing a piece of paper doesn't make it true or required. Companies are really banking on people making the value decision that doing the legal stuff is too much work, time, and money, so they're hoping for self-enforcement. It's the same reason we still s…

From what little I know, they were reasonably well-compensated people and they were just in a position to say, whatever. I'll just take a 6 month vacation or whatever and start things anew rather than have a court fight. Which I'd probably do as well.

"Just semi-retiring" is a pretty sensible option at some point.

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

#155

Post by fc417fc802 »

wbl wrote: post #153

IANAL but as I was told by some who are: They can say that all they want, but that isn't what the statutes or case law about trade secrets says. in California state courts take a very dim view of this sort of overreach.

That is exactly what I'm wondering about. At least a few states have severely limited noncompetes and even outright banned them in specific contexts. I have to wonder if a nondisclosure twisted for use as a noncompete would survive the courts in one of those states.

I'm also skeptical how enforceable this theory is in general. Have there been any noteworthy cases of employees getting screwed over that rested on it?

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

#156

Post by airocker »

kirubakaran wrote: post #40
thedufer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what conclusions you think we should draw from that. California's advantage over Washington is primarily one of size - Washington's GDP per capita is actually about 3% higher than California's. The most generous interpretation I can think of is that you're crediting the non-compete difference for California's far larger population, which is tenuous at best.

Shockley -> Fairchild -> Intel, AMD couldn't have happened with non-compete. So Silicon Valley couldn't have happened in Washington. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight Per capita isn't a good measure here, as Washington's weather helps lower the denominator (I say this as a former Seattle resident)

I can bet they happened with NDAs. Noncompete is another story, that is not the OPs problem here.

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

#157

Post by epicureanideal »

inetknght wrote: post #126
thfuran wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Society would be better if we could, and we would all benefit.

Looking at what the growth trajectories are of countries with high corruption, it’s not great, so our growth is probably still reduced by the corruption or lawlessness that still exists.

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

#158

Post by lovich »

kragen wrote: post #90
lovich wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are negotiating terms you are not an average Joe. Average Joe’s don’t even interact with people capable of requesting someone higher up to approve the change. Average Joe’s get given a take it or leave it deal

You evidently have no idea what you're talking about.

Then please provide me sources. What non single digit percentage of the workforce regularly has the ability to negotiate clauses in work agreements?

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

#159

Post by JoshTriplett »

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.

> Normally it's to stop a person leaving from stealing clients.

I have a lot more sympathy for "you may not take clients with you" clauses than for "you may not work in the same industry" clauses.

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

#160

Post by throwaway2037 »

Hot take: Sign these agreements without worry. When you change employers in the future, make no public announcements about it -- don't post anything on social media, including LinkedIn. Do your best not to transfer any IP between employers. You will be fine.

Finally: Yes, I think these agreements should be illegal. I recently signed a new employment contract that requires me not to disparage my new employer... forever. Literally: There is no end date. I could be an old man in a squeaky rocking chair that says something bad about my (then) former employer, and they have the right to sue me for breaking a non-disparagement agreement. I laughed to myself when I signed that contract.

Post reply on HN