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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

#81

Post by onion2k »

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.

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.

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

#82

Post by kragen »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #26
stego-tech wrote: post #21

Have an employment attorney always look over said agreements before signing. A local acquaintance who did work for an MSP had said MSP try such a ploy, only for the employment attorney to sue and get it thrown out as unreasonable and unenforceable. Never, EVER sign a contract without reading it first, and having your lawyer review it.

> your lawyer That presupposes that people have a lawyer, and one specialized in employment law at that, which is highly unlikely to be the case for 99% of the population.

We're talking about negotiating a contract with a value on the order of a million dollars (say, US$200k total compensation per year for five years). Even if you don't have a lawyer normally, it may be worth the few hundred dollars it costs to hire one for this purpose, unless you have no savings.

I never did, though. I just crossed out the clauses I didn't want to accept and initialed them.

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

#83

Post by teeray »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #13
transactional wrote: post #2

...but are they enforceable?

To riff Keynes, Enforcement can maintain litigation longer than you can maintain solvency.

And that’s our judicial system: whoever has more ability to sustain prolonged cash flow wins.

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

#84

Post by ghaff »

stego-tech wrote: post #65
iLoveOncall wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your lawyer That presupposes that people have a lawyer, and one specialized in employment law at that, which is highly unlikely to be the case for 99% of the population.

A good employment law lawyer is A) not at all hard to find in major metros, B) charges reasonable rates for quick turnaround times, and C) is something more people need to have on their side in general, rather than elevating them as some snooty thing only the elite have. This whole “bUt WhO hAs A lAwYeR” nonsense I’m being blasted with in my comments is exactly why these sorts of contracts, grifts, and scams are allo…

Yeah, as far as I know, I've never needed one (aside from very routine real estate) but I've had to get a couple lawyers recently for different purposes--through my neighbor. I know lawyers but not in the field I need. Sort of a PITA but just something you need to do sometimes.

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

#85

Post by lovich »

kragen wrote: post #78
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, good luck being the odd one out who wants special individualized contract. This might work for unicorn value level employees that are poached from one FANG to another but not for the average Joe.

As an average Joe, I was able to negotiate employment contract changes every place I worked in the tech industry in California in the early 02000s. I don't remember having been faced with contract clauses that I felt needed alteration as an entry-level tech employee in the 01990s.

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

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

#86

Post by PaulHoule »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #33

OTOH, beware letting yourself be intimidated by scary looking but unenforcable clauses that are all over contracts. In doubt, spend a bit of money on a lawyer to figure out what your real situation is. I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".

I had a non-compete cause in a contract, I wound up in a dispute over unemployment insurance and the contract came up, the judge told me that the non-complete cause didn't make any sense at all but that's because it was poorly written.

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

#87

Post by ghaff »

gopher_space wrote: post #50
ryandrake wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, maybe, but effectively, nobody is going to be able to withstand BigCorp's 100 lawyers whose mission is to bury you in legal fees if you push back. By the time that you confirm these things are unenforceable, you've spent your life savings on $millions in legal fees, and possibly gone into crippling debt. In the legal system, might (wealth + lawyer quantity) makes right.

It sounds like moving to California for a year would be way cheaper.

You'll probably still end up in court even if the plaintiff will likely lose. Maybe cheaper, maybe not.

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

#88

Post by neuroelectron »

Too bad. I routinely reapply the exact same business logic across competitors. I even have proprietary source code collections I use for reference. If you don't like it, write your own software. Business methods are literally unpatentable.

If you're not copying internal wikis, and poaching customers what are you even doing?

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

#89

Post by dimitry12 »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #33

OTOH, beware letting yourself be intimidated by scary looking but unenforcable clauses that are all over contracts. In doubt, spend a bit of money on a lawyer to figure out what your real situation is. I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".

What are the keywords for finding a lawyer who can advise on non-competes?

Asking because it turned out nearly impossible to find a local lawyer to advise on a dispute couple months ago - with 9 out of 10 telling me they only do divorces or real estate or immigration. I was literally calling one by one from a list based on what I believe were relevant search criteria on State Bar website.

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

#90

Post by kragen »

lovich wrote: post #85
kragen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an average Joe, I was able to negotiate employment contract changes every place I worked in the tech industry in California in the early 02000s. I don't remember having been faced with contract clauses that I felt needed alteration as an entry-level tech employee in the 01990s.

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.
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