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416 points throwarayes | 16 comments | | HN request time: 0.683s | 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

1. airocker ◴[] No.44341579[source]
So if you are against this, you are okay with Coca Cola’s secret to be divulged by any employee to any competitor? If you cannot let companies maintain trade secrets, you may as well close them down.
replies(4): >>44341592 #>>44341594 #>>44341634 #>>44342882 #
2. 93po ◴[] No.44341592[source]
as far as i can tell there are a million sodas that are extremely close to coca cola and coca cola is still doing just fine
replies(2): >>44341598 #>>44341643 #
3. airocker ◴[] No.44341594[source]
There is a difference between trade secrets and non compete. If you can compete with the company without using trade secrets, like make a drink that people like without using Coca Cola secret, it is fine.
4. airocker ◴[] No.44341598[source]
That’s my whole point. They are not using Coke’s formula
replies(1): >>44341698 #
5. sircastor ◴[] No.44341634[source]
This implies that any employee at Coca Cola knows and has access to the secret formula, which is of course, not true. And even if it were true, there's a substantial difference between a specific, limited piece of information (such as the recipe for Coca Cola) and broad concepts about operating in an industry.

I work in the Robotics industry. While the algorithm for our path planning would be a trade secret, how path planning is pursued is not. It's a fundamental concept in robotics. To extend the metaphor, it would be as if my company thought that any robotics work that involved path planning would violate their IP, because I did path planning work with them. It's nuanced to be sure, but some companies are very aggressive as to prevent you from having mobility in your career. Sometimes in a genuine effort to protect their IP, but also sometimes to reduce your negotiating power or punish you.

6. sircastor ◴[] No.44341643[source]
Getting off topic, there's an interesting This American Life story about the Coca Cola formula, and why there are many extremely close formulas, but no exact replicas.

[1] https://www.thisamericanlife.org/427/original-recipe

replies(2): >>44341664 #>>44342034 #
7. airocker ◴[] No.44341664{3}[source]
I think if the extremely close replicas ever threatened Coke's existence, they would sue. Especially if a former employee started it. I think trade secret protection is the only thing that enables a company to operate. Especially small companies, otherwise only large companies can operate. Any employee with a rich uncle can finish the small company off without this protection.
8. harimau777 ◴[] No.44341698{3}[source]
But they are using functionally equivalent formulas and Coke is still fine.
replies(1): >>44341713 #
9. airocker ◴[] No.44341713{4}[source]
if coke did not have deep pockets, it would have gone under without this protection.
replies(1): >>44368915 #
10. baobun ◴[] No.44342034{3}[source]
My head canon of the secret recipe is the Kung Fu Panda ending.

Protagonist gets to open the vault of secret formula after decades working their way to the top. Inside is a Coke label with the ingredients part unprinted.

It was always the brand.

replies(1): >>44342069 #
11. airocker ◴[] No.44342069{4}[source]
Brand takes money to build. IF an employee took the secret to their rich uncle when coke was small, we would not be talking about Coke. Whatever small the formula was.
12. airocker ◴[] No.44342882[source]
why downvote this? I have gone through this route and can vouch this is for a good cause, this conversation may mislead people into believing stealing is okay.
replies(1): >>44346044 #
13. detaro ◴[] No.44346044[source]
because it's an obvious straw man.
replies(1): >>44347922 #
14. airocker ◴[] No.44347922{3}[source]
Maybe it is not, you need much more context about the OP to declare this as a straw argument. Confidentiality agreements are generally very boilerplate. If someone is thinking that this is preventing them from working at something, they are possibly just not understanding what stealing means. This guy possibly had similar understanding of laws: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-uber-executive-s...
15. 93po ◴[] No.44368915{5}[source]
there are a million different manufacturers of, for example, hot dogs, and those hot dogs basically taste all the same to everyone, and yet they're all making basically identical hotdogs and doing fine
replies(1): >>44388825 #
16. airocker ◴[] No.44388825{6}[source]
But none of them would end up becoming Coca Cola. At least not just by selling hot dogs.