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

416 points throwarayes | 6 comments | 21 Jun 25 16:02 UTC | HN request time: 1.178s | 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

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matsemann ◴[21 Jun 25 18:56 UTC] No.44339861[source]▶
So happy my union managed to ban broad non-competes in my country ~8 years ago. Now it needs to be very specific if they want to enforce it (not just "development work in the same industry" which most contracts had back when I graduated), only applicable for maximum a year, and they have to pay your salary for the time they stop you working somewhere else.
replies(2): >>44340095 #>>44346916 #
spigottoday ◴[22 Jun 25 13:45 UTC] No.44346916[source]▶
What about health insurance?
replies(1): >>44348162 #
1. matsemann ◴[22 Jun 25 16:24 UTC] No.44348162[source]▶
We don't need health insurance in Norway. ("universal health care" or what's it called in English?)
replies(1): >>44348530 #
2. socalgal2 ◴[22 Jun 25 17:17 UTC] No.44348530[source]▶
Isn't Norway's government is funded by gas and oil? Burn down the planet so we can have free health care
replies(1): >>44348706 #
3. matsemann ◴[22 Jun 25 17:39 UTC] No.44348706[source]▶
The economy may be well-boosted by the oil, but note that all the money is put into a fund and invested globally, and only a small percentage may be used in the government's budget each year. So no, free healthcare isn't funded by oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

And while I don't support our continued extraction of oil, I feel like your comment is quite weird. How is it relevant in this context? Lots of other nations have public health care without having oil. Besides, the US produces many, many times more oil each year than Norway, so your argument is a complete non sequitur.

Whatever beef you have, please don't include me in it.

replies(2): >>44353846 #>>44360348 #
4. WhyNotHugo ◴[23 Jun 25 09:26 UTC] No.44353846{3}[source]▶
To add to this, the government fund also deliberately avoids investing in oil, tobacco, military weaponry and a few similar industries.
5. socalgal2 ◴[23 Jun 25 21:30 UTC] No.44360348{3}[source]▶
I guess I'm missing it. You linked to wikipedia which says it's called "Oil Fund" (Oljefondet). Further down it says "As of June 2011, it was the largest pension fund in the world, but it is not a pension fund in the conventional sense, as it derives its financial backing from *oil profits*, not pension contributions"

> the US produces many, many times more oil each year than Norway, so your argument is a complete non sequitur.

The US isn't funding health care through oil profits. If it was going to fund public health care (which it does) it does it through taxes.

You basically have a free money fountain and get free stuff it (while you burn down the rest of th world) and then you come on here and say "things are great over hear! surprised they aren't great over there" without acknowledging that you have a free money source.

replies(1): >>44363338 #
6. matsemann ◴[24 Jun 25 06:22 UTC] No.44363338{4}[source]▶
Yes, you're not understanding how it works: The oil profits go into the fund, not government budgets. So we're also not funding health care through oil profits, that oil money is locked away for the future in that fund.

I do think your attacks are quite unwarranted. Every time something good about the US is mentioned, should I then swoop in and mention how you're bombing the world, the tech profits are made on algorithms destroying society, your constant one-day delivery is flooding the world in plastics? How is that even relevant?

Also note, I only mentioned how the union here managed to remove non-compete clauses. Then someone else brought in health insurance and then oil. Not me.

For the record, I have been voting for the green party, that wants to disallow opening new oil rigs. Your beef isn't with me, don't harass a whole country, that's just unfair of you.