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

416 points throwarayes | 2 comments | 21 Jun 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 1.331s | 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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exe34 ◴[21 Jun 25 19:01 UTC] No.44339889[source]▶
> 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

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.

replies(1): >>44340036 #
lazide ◴[21 Jun 25 19:19 UTC] No.44340036[source]▶
Realistically, most places ban ‘unconscionable’ contract clauses, either explicitly or by making them unenforceable.

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

replies(1): >>44340479 #
duskwuff ◴[21 Jun 25 20:23 UTC] No.44340479[source]▶
Precisely. And, at least in the US, any contract which makes it impossible for a worker to take a new job in their field is extremely likely to be found unconscionable. It doesn't matter whether the contract is cast as a non-compete or as a NDA; if its effect is to say "you must work for us, or not at all", it's unlikely to hold up.
replies(1): >>44340841 #
ghaff ◴[21 Jun 25 21:25 UTC] No.44340841[source]▶
Maybe. I've known companies in the IT industry that took a very hard line on non-competes. Whether they won in court, I don't know. But I've know people who took a year off rather than involving the lawyers. Small pretty well-defined segment of the industry and a couple of the big players apparently did take it seriously. (Never worked for either.)
replies(2): >>44341296 #>>44342014 #
1. const_cast ◴[22 Jun 25 00:53 UTC] No.44342014[source]▶
This is exactly what the company is hoping for. In actuality, you can put literally anything in a contract. Sell your first born baby, sacrifice a goat, whatever. Signing a piece of paper doesn't make it true or required.

Companies are really banking on people making the value decision that doing the legal stuff is too much work, time, and money, so they're hoping for self-enforcement. It's the same reason we still see companies commonly doing things like terminating employees before maternity leave. They know a new mother (who is now jobless) isn't going to bother with the trouble of a potentially multi-year wrongful termination suit.

replies(1): >>44342140 #
2. ghaff ◴[22 Jun 25 01:07 UTC] No.44342140[source]▶
From what little I know, they were reasonably well-compensated people and they were just in a position to say, whatever. I'll just take a 6 month vacation or whatever and start things anew rather than have a court fight. Which I'd probably do as well.

"Just semi-retiring" is a pretty sensible option at some point.