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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

#161

Post by throwaway2037 »

kelnos wrote: post #127
v5v3 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/knowled…

    > reasonably common for it to be as long as a year
Absolutely not. For ibanks, less than VP is one month. VP/ED/MD is three months. Sometimes it is six months for an MD, but that is extreme. The longest that I ever heard was someone who left Citadel as a portfolio manager had a TWO year gardening leave. How can that make any financial sense for Citadel? Before the HN crowd jumps in about that Citadel example being "reasonably common": There are probably less than 1,000 people globally who would fall under such an extreme contract.

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

#162

Post by ghaff »

Sharlin wrote: post #134
schmichael wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, yes, but you don't have to work.

For a lot of people, taking 50% of base salary (absent bonus/RSU/etc.) isn't very practical. Even if there's some alternative like Starbucks.

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

#163

Post by hippari2 »

Sharlin wrote: post #134
schmichael wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, yes, but you don't have to work.

More like you are not allowed to work. Loss of work experience, loss network, not even accounting for inflation.

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

#164

Post by [deleted] »

thfuran wrote: post #118
bobbruno wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the law has specific clauses about this that the contract disrespects, these conditions are not worth the paper they are written on. At least in Brazil you can't enforce something the law doesn't allow in a contract - that clause would be considered void without nullifying the contract. And Labour law in Brazil leans (or used to lean) more in favor of the employee,so yes, the law would win. Another aspect there is…

>If the law has specific clauses about this that the contract disrespects, these conditions are not worth the paper they are written on Unless the law also has severe penalty for including such terms, of course they are. They don't need to dissuade 100% of people from breaking 100% of the terms to be of use to the company.

[deleted]

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

#165

Post by thfuran »

epicureanideal wrote: post #157
inetknght wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you think having billionaires at all is of benefit to society? Or do you just mean that the people inclined to break rules to accumulate unreasonable wealth would just follow them instead if that worked as well and that is what would benefit society?

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

#166

Post by kragen »

Sharlin wrote: post #134
schmichael wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, yes, but you don't have to work.

Doesn't mean you don't have to make the mortgage payment.

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

#167

Post by kragen »

Spivak wrote: post #145
onion2k wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Tesla had been able to stop Andrej Karpathy working at Open AI just by spending 1/3 of what his salary was when he was on Autopilot. That sounds like a terrible idea.

I mean under the current rules they could have stopped him for 0/3 of his salary.

Wasn't he in California? If so, they couldn't have.

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

#168

Post by kragen »

lovich wrote: post #158
kragen wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Like, every single white collar worker?

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

#169

Post by airocker »

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.

why downvote this? I have gone through this route and can vouch this is for a good cause, this conversation may mislead people into believing stealing is okay.
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