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

416 points throwarayes | 1 comments | 21 Jun 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.285s | 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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dakiol ◴[21 Jun 25 19:21 UTC] No.44340052[source]▶
In some countries that's illegal. So when presented with a contract that contains such claims, I have 2 options:

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.

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coderatlarge ◴[21 Jun 25 20:31 UTC] No.44340523[source]▶
i personally consider bad legal clauses in employment contracts a seriously negative sign about the employer. if they’re trying to pull that sort of thing at hiring, what are they going to try to do later when you’re fully committed?? is executive leadership simply unaware or do they condone that sort of thing??
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mystified5016 ◴[21 Jun 25 20:48 UTC] No.44340626[source]▶
Well, yes. That's how we do business in the USA. It's literally unavoidable unless you can afford to spend a year or three declining offers until you find a unicorn with a sane contract.

Approximately all businesses explictly try to exploit workers to the full extent of the law. That's what capitalism is and it's how we've structured our society.

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1. coderatlarge ◴[21 Jun 25 22:31 UTC] No.44341208[source]▶
social media shaming has worked in a few high profile companies like openai recently. especially when founders are still around and feel some personal culpability when their company’s values are on display.

but i think your broader societal point stands though. especially with horrible language in vendor contracts that people click through because who has time for that garbage. i hope llms will help people push back in somewhat more concerted and systematic fashion.