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

> 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.