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

416 points throwarayes | 5 comments | 21 Jun 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.66s | source

Just a note of warning from personal experience.

Companies don’t really need non-competes anymore. Some companies take an extremely broad interpretation of IP confidentiality, where they consider doing any work in the industry during your lifetime an inevitable confidentiality violation. They argue it would be impossible for you to work elsewhere in this industry during your entire career without violating confidentiality with the technical and business instincts you bring to that domain. It doesn’t require conscious violation on your part (they argue).

So beware and read your employment agreement carefully.

More here https://www.promarket.org/2024/02/08/confidentiality-agreeme...

And this is the insane legal doctrine behind this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inevitable_disclosure

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kirubakaran ◴[21 Jun 25 18:14 UTC] No.44339541[source]▶
It's funny how states like Washington are notorious for enforceable non-competes, to be "business friendly".

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

"incumbent friendly" vs "startup friendly"

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1. llm_nerd ◴[21 Jun 25 18:31 UTC] No.44339672[source]▶
I'm pro-California and anti-noncompetes, but I'm not sure if this evidence demonstrates much. The banning of non-competes in California is a very recent thing, and if we're doing a correlation thing, California saw the vast bulk of its growth when non-competes were in effect.
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2. haxton ◴[21 Jun 25 18:42 UTC] No.44339760[source]▶
California has banned non competes since 1872. You might be thinking about non solicits which was 2024 also reaffirming the ban on non competes
3. loaph ◴[21 Jun 25 18:48 UTC] No.44339799[source]▶
It’s not a recent thing. Search for 1872 here, https://www.purduegloballawschool.edu/blog/news/california-n...

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...

4. karthikb ◴[21 Jun 25 19:33 UTC] No.44340124[source]▶
The Traitorous Eight would only have been possible in California, not Washington, because of the position on noncompetes.
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5. ghaff ◴[21 Jun 25 21:12 UTC] No.44340760[source]▶
On the other hand, moving between (and founding) minicomputer companies was a thing for a long time in spite of Massachusetts being fairly non-compete clause friendly until very recently. And arguably, current laws enacted against some fairly strenuous tech company opposition force companies to put some skin in the game but are still a pretty raw deal for employees who can't afford to sit on the bench for 50% of their former base. (Which is what I think relatively recent legislation calls for.)

I'm against non-competes except in narrow cases. But a lot of people probably give the general inability to enforce non-competes in California too much credit for CA tech success in spite of one story in particular.