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

416 points throwarayes | 6 comments | 21 Jun 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.894s | source | bottom

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. thedufer ◴[21 Jun 25 19:06 UTC] No.44339937[source]▶
I'm not sure what conclusions you think we should draw from that. California's advantage over Washington is primarily one of size - Washington's GDP per capita is actually about 3% higher than California's. The most generous interpretation I can think of is that you're crediting the non-compete difference for California's far larger population, which is tenuous at best.
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2. kirubakaran ◴[21 Jun 25 19:49 UTC] No.44340256[source]▶
Shockley -> Fairchild -> Intel, AMD couldn't have happened with non-compete. So Silicon Valley couldn't have happened in Washington.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight

Per capita isn't a good measure here, as Washington's weather helps lower the denominator (I say this as a former Seattle resident)

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3. airocker ◴[22 Jun 25 01:26 UTC] No.44342299[source]▶
I can bet they happened with NDAs. Noncompete is another story, that is not the OPs problem here.
4. Der_Einzige ◴[22 Jun 25 13:26 UTC] No.44346784[source]▶
Seattles weather does nothing to lower the denominator. The PNW is rainy and somewhat cold, but not cold enough to kill homeless on the street in large numbers which is what folks seem to think lowers the denominator. And yes I do live in the PNW.
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5. ◴[22 Jun 25 14:48 UTC] No.44347363{3}[source]▶
6. dehugger ◴[22 Jun 25 16:59 UTC] No.44348392{3}[source]▶
Eastern Washington is what lowers the denominator.

Source: grew up there.