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

you do get non competes etc., but it never holds up in court as you can easily prove it prevents you from finding jobs.

i wish for you in your legislation there might be a similar law, otherwise these things are really evil. i mean, its like prison in some fields niche enough, and those are exactly the fields prone to such overly protective clauses

Here it's six months top, and it only applies to management and specialists with critical domain knowledge - and this also has to be reflected in their wage.

Meanwhile California bans non-competes, and its GDP is 4th largest in the world if it were a country!

"incumbent friendly" vs "startup friendly"

Some form of a ban on noncompete enforcement in CA has existed since then.

It has long been codified in CA business code 16600, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...

1) ask them to remove it... and so I risk not getting the job

2) don't say anything, and sign it

If I'm really interested in the job, I'll go for option 2 because I know they cannot enforce such claims, so I'll be fine.

I know of several cases where lawyers said "don't bother arguing with them about clause X, just sign it and ignore it".

In that case you need to ask for a lifetime worth of salary, including growth from being in position to be put in escrow before you sign the dotted line. Otherwise they can hire you and fire you immediately and you'd never be able to work in your field that you spent years/decades training for.

At least in theory, any judge that saw clauses like that should throw it out for that reason alone in those jurisdictions.

I moved from New York to California a bit over 20 years ago in large part because I personally encountered this (the IP ownership bit), and preferred to live under California's rules.

It is worthwhile to read https://www.paulgraham.com/america.html. Point 7 talks about how easy it is for regulations to accidentally squash startups. I believe that the fact that California makes neither mistake causes us squash fewer startups. It is not sufficient to have made Silicon Valley a startup hub, but it was likely necessary.

At the time I was working for a competitor and I figured they could use the fact that I interviewed with them to argue that I - either intentionally or unintentionally - gained proprietary knowledge of their product and my current employer gained from it.

You are required to hold confidential stuff for life, like business contracts, but you can use your know-how, if it does not violate any patents, in a competing company as you see fit. This knowledge is a part of you and cannot hold you against employment. Even if you do decide within those two years to employ yourself in competing company, this can be held back by your original company only if they give you X% of your pay at them (X can be 80, or as low as 50, as my friends inform me).

Enforcement can maintain litigation longer than you can maintain solvency.

California bans anything that is effectively a non compete.

"Defendant has never worked in any other industry. He has three kids. He's gotta work."

(That's for regular employees--it's a different issue with founders who may have significant equity stake and such.)

The worst is that they can delay the case for years, leaving you in a legal limbo. Or go after your employer, involving them in the discovery process.

So the callout to be wary of them is totally legit... but it doesn't look like they are going to be enforceable when such things go through the courts.

I’d rather not carry the cost of learning it’s not enforceable.

Never, EVER sign a contract without reading it first, and having your lawyer review it.

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.