The case for banning non-competes • Hacker News Board

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#171

Post by mrweasel » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #70

mrweasel wrote: post #10

You don’t exactly need to ban them, but the employees should be compensated during the non-compete period and limit the lenght of the non-compete contract. In Denmark my employeer can’t make non-compete contract for more that 12 month, during which I’m entitled to 60% of my salery. It’s also only valid within the same field. That is: You can’t jump from Microsoft, developing Windows, to Apple and work on macOS, but y…

> In Denmark my employeer can’t make non-compete contract for more that 12 month, during which I’m entitled to 60% of my salery. It’s also only valid within the same field. That is: You can’t jump from Microsoft, developing Windows, to Apple and work on macOS You probably can tho, unless they're justifying that you're privy to some super important stuff which endangers the company if you go work for Apple. Which… see…

You’re correct, you cannot enforce a non-compete on your average engineer, it has to be some specialist function.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#172

Post by stevesimmons » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #123

trentnix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my employer does everything. There is no field that my employer is not involved in, somehow. You can guess who they are, probably, or just read my profile. And they say "You cannot do anything that competes with anything we do". Which is everything. Want to make a Sudoku app? That's a game, we do games. Want to do some open source ML library work? We do ML, you can't do ML outside of work (I asked legal that one)…

> I'm in a US state that allows non-competes and recently turned down a job because I wasn't comfortable with the non-compete expressly because the company's opinion of its own market was so broad. They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone" and "have no intentions to", and I think they honestly believe that. But then why have the non-compete at all? FWIW you can try editing the contract, removing the…

> tacking on steep consideration for exercising the NCC (as well as hard limit on it)

Now I'm mid-career, employers want to hire me for my experience.

If presented with a non-complete clause, I first strike it out, saying it isn't fair that you stop me working in my core area of expertise, when you're hiring me for exactly that reason.

If that gets refused, I instead add a clause that says any period where the non-compete is enforced will be paid at my full salary.

In practice, there ends up being a short discussion with HR, some thinking behind the scenes, and that clause is allowed. And when I eventually leave, the non-compete period ends up being waived.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#173

Post by DeRock » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #48

mabbo wrote: post #23

There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…

> There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. There are more kinds of non-competes. Neither of the kinds you're listing is blanket-legal anywhere in Europe, as far as I can tell, but there are still NCC/NCAs. Generally speaking, in Europe, NCC/NCAs must: * show a reasonable business interest, mere competition does not ever qualify * be geographically limited * be temporally limited (rarely more than…

Those NCC/NCAs are unenforceable in California (outside some very specific exclusions, like C-level/founders), and California thrives, arguably because of it! I don't want my employer to be able to bully me into a contract where I can't switch to whatever job I want (even for "max 2 years" and half my previous pay...). A blanket ban clearly works and removes some of the employee/employer power imbalance. Should be the end of discussion.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#174

Post by cgb223 » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #23

There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…

I know the former are illegal in California, but are the latter illegal as well?

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#175

Post by CPLX » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #32

mabbo wrote: post #23

There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…

> Obviously, if I work as a developer making a stock trading app, I shouldn't be making a competing stock trading app after hours. Why is that obvious? If I work as a studio musician can I also be working on my own album after hours?

For the most part artists signed to songwriting or publishing deals as well as run if the mill record deals sign over the rights to everything they produce during the covered period.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#176

Post by intricatedetail » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #23

There are two kinds of non-competes, and both have problems. First, there's the really nasty ones saying "If you ever work here, you can't work for any competitor for X years", and they're clearly abusing of employees, labor, etc. I hope there is a straight up ban on that. The second kind is "You can't compete with us while you work here". And that is a much more complex beast. Obviously, if I work as a developer mak…

Shouldn't be a problem if they paid adequately. Employee that has 10x salary unlikely is going to look for his or hers own way. When I was on a low pay I always had side projects.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#177

Post by vineyardmike » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #91

trentnix wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But my employer does everything. There is no field that my employer is not involved in, somehow. You can guess who they are, probably, or just read my profile. And they say "You cannot do anything that competes with anything we do". Which is everything. Want to make a Sudoku app? That's a game, we do games. Want to do some open source ML library work? We do ML, you can't do ML outside of work (I asked legal that one)…

> They implored me to trust that they had "never sued anyone" and "have no intentions to", and I think they honestly believe that. But then why have the non-compete at all? Exactly. 'That's great; we can resolve that issue easily. Let's just skip the non-compete - you're not using it anyway and I'm not comfortable with it.' EDIT: A non-lawyer's suggestion (talk to a lawyer before you do this): Skip signing or edit do…

My offer letter explicitly stated that starting work (and accepting the stated pay) constituted agreeing to all the docs sent over, unless explicitly agreed upon otherwise.

I can't wait to have enough savings to quit and move to california where the employee protections are so much higher.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#178

Post by tracyhenry » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

ivanbakel wrote: post #115

tracyhenry wrote: post #86

A noob question: how can a small business get to keep the secret ingredient of their success if employees are allowed to jump ship as they wish? From the employee perspective banning non-competes are ofc the best thing. But this feels terrible if it means that secret sauces of small startups will get copied easily (potentially by bigger players).

The fact is that "secret sauces" are basically worthless. Every successful business is 99% execution (& luck). A startup, especially in tech, will never be able to base its value on something simple enough for an employee to smuggle out legally (i.e. in their brain).

This is a very biased view IMO. Plenty of businesses are based on patented secret sauces. Even for the type of companies that rely on execution, there will be important lessons learned, which ultimately become the "secret sauces". And you don't fear a random employee who might fit your secrets in their brain. You fear a set of experienced employees who can replicate your businesses somewhere else if they want to.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#179

Post by intricatedetail » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

My state has severely limited non-compete agreements to the point that they’re only narrowly enforceable, if at all. That didn’t stop one of my previous employers from using non-compete scare tactics against employees. Many of us left in a large exodus when benefits and bonuses were cut and management made a number of other bad decisions. The company responded by sending remaining employees an e-mail with a list of c…

Isn't that simply a harassment? I would report employer to the police and ask for an injunction.

Re: The case for banning non-competes

#180

Post by b3morales » Fri, Jul 16, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

api wrote: post #16

Require companies to pay employees some percentage of their former salary (e.g. 20%) for the period of a non-compete, otherwise it is unenforceable. That would ensure that companies only bother to enforce non-competes when the stakes are high and it's serious, and prevent them from basically IP-trolling former employees by making such a thing unprofitable.

I have a very hard time with anything less than 100%. You're talking about preventing people from using their main skills to put food on the table.

And frankly, even 100% discounts the professional development that comes in the natural course of employment. You will have missed opportunities for skill advancement and networking.

After 2 years not working because of the non-compete, how are interviews for the next position going to go? You'll be rusty at best. Side projects are not, in general, a fair substitute: what does an Amazon SRE do on hardware at home that compares to what's on the job? Even for an individual developer, there's a world of difference hacking on your own web app and working on a team with large numbers of actual customers.