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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: 0.385s | 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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tianqi ◴[21 Jun 25 19:56 UTC] No.44340313[source]▶
I think the Chinese law is effective in this regard: in order to maintain any non-competition agreement, the company must continue to pay you a monthly compensation amount equal to 30% of your total monthly income when you were at the company. Whenever the payment stops, the non-competition agreement is automatically void.
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v5v3 ◴[21 Jun 25 22:23 UTC] No.44341170[source]▶
That's a terrible law.

30% of your total monthly income as it was, when you are likely leaving for more money at a competitor or to start your own company...

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muzani ◴[22 Jun 25 03:42 UTC] No.44343330[source]▶
Bad if you leave for a competitor. I've never really done so. Fintech, social media, recipes, bidding, e-commerce, fashion, saas, mental health, games, and so on. There's just a wide range of fields you can go into that don't compete and still use the same skills.

Unless the previous employer is slow and incompetent, if you've done good work, they'd probably be ahead and better funded. I'd take the money.

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1. IshKebab ◴[22 Jun 25 07:33 UTC] No.44344741[source]▶
Only if you're a generalist. What if you're an expert on some specific tech?

I mean I would probably take the money and temporarily switch fields too but I don't think it's quite that simple for a lot of people.