4 ms·

Non-competes enforced in this way certainly seem unfair to employees. But let's talk this through. Assuming we all agree we don't like them, what's the alterna

by PKop 9y ago

Non-competes enforced in this way certainly seem unfair to employees. But let's talk this through. Assuming we all agree we don't like them, what's the alternative? There seem to exist obvious negative consequences of them not existing in any form. Wouldn't large companies such as Google, Amazon etc be able to poach any employee of let's say a startup competitor, by simply paying way more, therefore being able to steal ideas, technology, etc? Or even amongst (well-capitalized) companies of any size: a free-for-all for employees within industries, good or bad? Maybe not so bad actually.. what say you? Seriously asking because I'm trying to envision the positives and negatives of them being outlawed..

dullgiulio 9y ago
Just put the burden of keeping the market open and competitive to the corps, not the empolyees. The government's role becomes that of watchdog against monopolies. Employees should have the right to work wherever they like. Where I live, it's only possible to sign a contract to get paid not to compete after you leave. If you start competing, you lose the pay.
bluGill 9y ago
Mostly it doesn't matter. If you gave me a compete copy of our competitors source code and there was no restriction on using it I wouldn't spend more than a few hours looking at it. We already have our working code built on our architecture. It is quicker to recreate their algorithms from scratch in our project than to read their code. We might look into their code for something specific (probably their data file format), but even then it is likely we would document what they do and reimplement it in our system from documentation. The above isn't just speculation. In a previous job I made third party scan tools for cars. One manufacture didn't provide their legally mandated documentation. When lawyers contacted them about it they panicked and shipped us their source code and the above is what we did. (giving us source code doesn't meet the legal requirements, but at least it was enough that we could get our features working)
bgentry 9y ago
You perfectly described the alternative. Rather than relying on non-competes, employers must pay their employees sufficiently well and treat them well enough to discourage poaching. Better in every way for employees, but possibly expensive for employers. If the CA tech scene has shown us anything, it's that companies will do just fine without relying on repressive & anti-competitive employment contracts.
- unit91 9y ago
  > ... but possibly expensive for employers Very likely prohibitively expensive for a lot of employers. Suppose you're a small-business owner with a great product, albeit with a limited but growing customer base. You work where cost of living is much lower than SV. $100K for a developer is pretty good pay, and you can't afford to pay, say, $125K per year. One of the "big guys" offers some of your devs $200K per year remote to bring their knowledge and reimplement a knock-off. You're sunk, and not because you are too hard-hearted to pay better salaries. I'm not saying the current non-compete system is optimal (I've been bitten by it), but some reasonable level of protection needs to exist or we'll descend into (near) monopoly territory even more rapidly than we currently are.
  - sedachv 9y ago
    Wage fixing is not a "reasonable level of protection."
gav 9y ago
My issue with non-competes is that the vast majority of people who sign them don't understand what they are signing, nor do they negotiate the terms. They feel that they are in a weak position; it's the first day of a job and if they don't sign they'll be unemployed. What's worse is that you are generally presented with a stack of paperwork to sign and told it's just a formality. There's also the misunderstanding that everything you sign is binding, it's not uncommon in CA for employees to sign what looks like a non-compete, and then believe that it is enforceable. Very few people have a lawyer, or can afford to pay a lawyer to review these agreements. Even fewer are brave enough not to sign them then and there. I've seen some very egregious language before, one of my favorites was one that restricted the employee from working for any past, present, or future (defined as one year) customers of the employer--and their future employers from the same! I've got no idea how this was supposed to be enforced, but it caused the signee to be in fear of being sued.
mattm 9y ago
It's pretty simple. Keep non-competes but require the company to pay a certain percentage of your salary during the period the non-compete specifies after you've left the company. If you are so valuable that a company is worried about you going to a competitor then they should have to put their money where there mouth is.

by PKop 9y ago

dullgiulio 9y ago

Just put the burden of keeping the market open and competitive to the corps, not the empolyees. The government's role becomes that of watchdog against monopolies. Employees should have the right to work wherever they like. Where I live, it's only possible to sign a contract to get paid not to compete after you leave. If you start competing, you lose the pay.

bluGill 9y ago

Mostly it doesn't matter. If you gave me a compete copy of our competitors source code and there was no restriction on using it I wouldn't spend more than a few hours looking at it. We already have our working code built on our architecture. It is quicker to recreate their algorithms from scratch in our project than to read their code. We might look into their code for something specific (probably their data file format), but even then it is likely we would document what they do and reimplement it in our system from documentation. The above isn't just speculation. In a previous job I made third party scan tools for cars. One manufacture didn't provide their legally mandated documentation. When lawyers contacted them about it they panicked and shipped us their source code and the above is what we did. (giving us source code doesn't meet the legal requirements, but at least it was enough that we could get our features working)

bgentry 9y ago

You perfectly described the alternative. Rather than relying on non-competes, employers must pay their employees sufficiently well and treat them well enough to discourage poaching. Better in every way for employees, but possibly expensive for employers. If the CA tech scene has shown us anything, it's that companies will do just fine without relying on repressive & anti-competitive employment contracts.

unit91 9y ago
> ... but possibly expensive for employers Very likely prohibitively expensive for a lot of employers. Suppose you're a small-business owner with a great product, albeit with a limited but growing customer base. You work where cost of living is much lower than SV. $100K for a developer is pretty good pay, and you can't afford to pay, say, $125K per year. One of the "big guys" offers some of your devs $200K per year remote to bring their knowledge and reimplement a knock-off. You're sunk, and not because you are too hard-hearted to pay better salaries. I'm not saying the current non-compete system is optimal (I've been bitten by it), but some reasonable level of protection needs to exist or we'll descend into (near) monopoly territory even more rapidly than we currently are.
- sedachv 9y ago
  Wage fixing is not a "reasonable level of protection."

gav 9y ago

My issue with non-competes is that the vast majority of people who sign them don't understand what they are signing, nor do they negotiate the terms. They feel that they are in a weak position; it's the first day of a job and if they don't sign they'll be unemployed. What's worse is that you are generally presented with a stack of paperwork to sign and told it's just a formality. There's also the misunderstanding that everything you sign is binding, it's not uncommon in CA for employees to sign what looks like a non-compete, and then believe that it is enforceable. Very few people have a lawyer, or can afford to pay a lawyer to review these agreements. Even fewer are brave enough not to sign them then and there. I've seen some very egregious language before, one of my favorites was one that restricted the employee from working for any past, present, or future (defined as one year) customers of the employer--and their future employers from the same! I've got no idea how this was supposed to be enforced, but it caused the signee to be in fear of being sued.

mattm 9y ago

It's pretty simple. Keep non-competes but require the company to pay a certain percentage of your salary during the period the non-compete specifies after you've left the company. If you are so valuable that a company is worried about you going to a competitor then they should have to put their money where there mouth is.