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FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

ftc.gov

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Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#431

Post by dragonwriter »

_akhe wrote: post #405

One last economic stimulus for startup lawyers before getting replaced by Mistral + RAG + your jurisdiction's .txt files and PDFs :D

Mistral (or even Mixtral) + RAG + txt/pdf files of law is nowhere close to usable to replace lawyers, and probably wouldn’t even provide reliable legal tooling.

(A decent LLM + RAG + LexisNexis or Westlaw’s proprietary extremely extensively human annotated datasets of constutitons, statutes, case law, precedent, and scholarship, OTOH, would likely be ingredients from which a powerful professional tool could be built.)

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#432

Post by syklep »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #411
kiba wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, the point of a patent is to 'protect' the little guy which I would argued actually doesn't. Not that I don't agree with you, what makes Kearns' pursuit 'greedy'?

He rejected $30,000,000. Jury awarded 1/6 after litigation. Ford payed double to get rid of this nuisance. $30 million in 1990 was fuck you money. It’s still enough to comfortably retire on for a high school aged person.

Inflation begs to differ. That much money left liquid for 60 years at 10% inflation will be worth less than 100k of today’s money.

Edit: sorry about the non sequitur. Bitterly learning about inflation and fiat recently.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#433

Post by xpe »

adastra22 wrote: post #421
xpe wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with those cases, but it seems to me that if such rules go in favor of "agencies only get to clarify where explicitly allowed" then there will a lot of undesirable consequences. Assuming legal ambiguities remain, with less administrative power, there will be less clarity! Less clarify on application, administration, and enforcement. Perhaps the courts will have to step in clarify? But this won't solv…

It’s called Chevron deference / doctrine, and yes the consequences would be far reaching. Whether the net benefit is good or bad is largely a subjective matter of political opinion.

Thanks. I just read [1].

> Whether the net benefit is good or bad is largely a subjective matter of political opinion.

Without knowing the intention of the author above, when I see the phrase "subjective matter of political opinion", it makes me wonder if it serves as a "semantic stop sign" or "thought-terminating cliché"[2].

WRT net benefits... it is one thing to have differing predictions about what will happen and quite another to assess each possible scenario.

I recognize differences of opinion and want a society that protects the freedoms to have them. However, to me, opinions matter much less than reasonable claims based on evidence. Luckily, when reading [1], there are many testable claims embedded in the arguments of the various justices.

For example, in the cases of an ambiguous law, who is better suited to understand the ambiguity... agency experts or judges? Which groups have better knowledge of the domain? Which have experience in engaging in sustained discussions with the industries they are regulating? Agencies have an objective advantage for both.

Here is my point: say we go through the, say, top twenty arguments and we dig into the details. I predict that most opinions one hears at the outset from the public don't survive contact with reality. Those opinions have to get tossed. What remains? Nuanced assessments of better and worse scenarios. By making these assessments more nuanced, the hope is we find workable and sensible compromises.

[1] https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/01/supreme-court-likely-to-d...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_cliché

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#434

Post by datadrivenangel »

PcChip wrote: post #427
emidln wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In finance, it's common to see a base of 150,000 and a VR of between 300k and 750k for engineers. During garden leave, you get paid your $150,000 as part of payroll, but are ineligble for VR. Your total comp goes from 450,000 (in mediocre years) or 900,000 (in good years) to 150,000 for whatever your non-compete period is (6 months, 12 months, 24 months are all common).

I suddenly feel like I’m in the wrong industry

Remember to consider $/hour and stress/$/hour.

In finance you make more money, but work more hours and have more stress per hour typically. Still probably a good deal, but it's not a Pareto efficient deal.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#435

Post by seattle_spring »

syklep wrote: post #432
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He rejected $30,000,000. Jury awarded 1/6 after litigation. Ford payed double to get rid of this nuisance. $30 million in 1990 was fuck you money. It’s still enough to comfortably retire on for a high school aged person.

Inflation begs to differ. That much money left liquid for 60 years at 10% inflation will be worth less than 100k of today’s money. Edit: sorry about the non sequitur. Bitterly learning about inflation and fiat recently.

Seems like kind of a non sequitur. Who would keep the money purely liquid? GP was pretty obviously talking about if it were invested, which statistically would have beat inflation using even pretty conservative options/funds. Using the 4% rule, it would have yielded $1.2m annually in 1990 value, and adjusted up for inflation every year thereafter. That's more than $2.8m/year in today's dollar.

Not only that, but in the odd scenario where it was "kept liquid", or kept purely in cash, it'd be worth $30m in today's money, not $100k. It's not clear where the $100k figure is even coming from. Even $100k/year doesn't make sense in any context I can derive.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#436

Post by _akhe »

dragonwriter wrote: post #431
_akhe wrote: post #405

One last economic stimulus for startup lawyers before getting replaced by Mistral + RAG + your jurisdiction's .txt files and PDFs :D

Mistral (or even Mixtral) + RAG + txt/pdf files of law is nowhere close to usable to replace lawyers, and probably wouldn’t even provide reliable legal tooling. (A decent LLM + RAG + LexisNexis or Westlaw’s proprietary extremely extensively human annotated datasets of constutitons, statutes, case law, precedent, and scholarship, OTOH, would likely be ingredients from which a powerful professional tool could be built.…

It was said in jest, but you went a little overboard with:

> wouldn’t even provide reliable legal tooling.

There are already funded companies and even hobbyists in Discords I'm in doing this with RAG, also patient medical docs, etc. it's really great for that use case of specific document data like laws or a patient's medical history.

Here are some AI assistants that I created that can interpret law, examine medical docs, help you buy shampoo, or even give you price and parts comparisons at your local auto parts store: https://github.com/bennyschmidt/ragdoll-studio/tree/master/e...

I say said in jest because (and this is counter to your second point) it very likely will not replace lawyers, but become tooling for lawyers.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#437

Post by bdowling »

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #411
kiba wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, the point of a patent is to 'protect' the little guy which I would argued actually doesn't. Not that I don't agree with you, what makes Kearns' pursuit 'greedy'?

He rejected $30,000,000. Jury awarded 1/6 after litigation. Ford payed double to get rid of this nuisance. $30 million in 1990 was fuck you money. It’s still enough to comfortably retire on for a high school aged person.

Don’t forget that the lawyers probably took 33-40%, after costs.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#438

Post by TeaBrain »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #169
Shorel wrote: post #105

Can they also ban tipping culture?

Tipping culture stays because consumers don't want to pay what the product is worth. You reduce salaries and suddenly the food looks cheaper, and the "tip" is what they took out of the salaries. When restaurants end tipping, consumers revolt at the real prices.

Compared to outside the US, the US tipping culture is really bizarre. It's gotten to the point where baristas ask for a tip with their self checkout machines, before they having even made a drink. Tips were never meant to make up a difference as you allege, especially not when "tipping" before service, which is not a tip, but a donation or bribe.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#439

Post by mlyle »

syklep wrote: post #432
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He rejected $30,000,000. Jury awarded 1/6 after litigation. Ford payed double to get rid of this nuisance. $30 million in 1990 was fuck you money. It’s still enough to comfortably retire on for a high school aged person.

Inflation begs to differ. That much money left liquid for 60 years at 10% inflation will be worth less than 100k of today’s money. Edit: sorry about the non sequitur. Bitterly learning about inflation and fiat recently.

10% inflation? And left liquid and earning literally nothing?

I guess if he lit the money all on fire, it would be worth nothing, too.

Re: FTC announces rule banning noncompetes

#440

Post by k1rd »

TuringNYC wrote: post #316
k1rd wrote: post #253

With respect to garden leave agreements, as noted previously, commenters used the term “garden leave” to refer to a wide variety of agreements. The Commission declines to opine on how the definition of non-compete clause in § 910.1 would apply in every potential factual scenario. However, the Commission notes that an agreement whereby the worker is still employed and receiving the same total annual compensation and b…

> "same total annual compensation and benefits" This would be a game changer. My experience with garden leaves was that the base salary remained but since the bonus and benefits were gone, the total comp was severely affected

Continue reading:

> Furthermore, where a worker does not meet a condition to earn a particular aspect of their expected compensation, like a prerequisite for a bonus, the Commission would still consider the arrangement “garden leave” that is not a non-compete clause under this final rule even if the employer did not pay the bonus or other expected compensation

I think TC is not included, will still get a base, but benefits seems to be included

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