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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: 0.205s | 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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OutOfHere ◴[21 Jun 25 18:15 UTC] No.44339555[source]▶
What exactly should one be on the lookout for? Practically every company has an IP confidentiality agreement.
replies(2): >>44339610 #>>44339845 #
Traubenfuchs ◴[21 Jun 25 18:23 UTC] No.44339610[source]▶
Yeah, good luck being the odd one out who wants special individualized contract. This might work for unicorn value level employees that are poached from one FANG to another but not for the average Joe.
replies(4): >>44339692 #>>44340519 #>>44340809 #>>44340829 #
mapmap ◴[21 Jun 25 20:30 UTC] No.44340519[source]▶
In my experience, as a normal non-unicorn employee at a large corp, I was able to have my contract modified. It required advice from an employment law lawyer that cost a few hundred dollars and a couple emails with the company’s general counsel.

You can change these contracts. Hiring people is difficult and once the company has made that decision they don’t want to lose you over a contract clause.

replies(1): >>44345685 #
1. anticensor ◴[22 Jun 25 10:30 UTC] No.44345685[source]▶
Some companies are literally legally barred from individualising employment contracts due to active union or government contracts they have.