4 ms·
Despite the general California rule, California does in fact permit and enforce non-competes. If an employee obtains “trade secrets” and the non compete is nar
by will_brown 8y ago
Despite the general California rule, California does in fact permit and enforce non-competes. If an employee obtains “trade secrets” and the non compete is narrowly tailored to prevent the employee from using said trade secrets, the non-compete will generally be enforceable.
- Latteland 8y agoTrue, but protection from stealing trade secrets and stealing customers are very different from ordinary devs facing non-competes. Every job I have taken in 25 years as a dev has them, never specifying what a competitor really means. If I work on optimizing compilers for Google I can't work at another company for a year? Amazon has actually enforced them against nonvps. Big companies basically compete against everything in the industry. You are confusing the issue imho. My current job says I am working under California law but still put a non-compete on my contract, because they want to make people think they can't leave.
- toast0 8y ago> You are confusing the issue imho. California companies often have you sign an agreement that prohibits working for competitors, and says they'll fire you if you do; as far as I know, those are enforceable. That seems to meet the naming convention of non-compete. Perhaps we need to use another word for the post-employment non-competes allowed in less civilized regions.
- gamblor956 8y agoIf you're working for a competitor while working for them...they probably should fire you simply as a matter of operational security unless you're doing the type of work where you wouldn't have any exposure to trade secrets.
- toast0 8y agoYeah, it's reasonable. Although it kind of kills any side projects if you're working at a big company; because name something fun to do that doesn't compete with Yahoo. But that's what I think of, when someone says non-compete. Because it's the only kind of non-compete I've seen, no one has tried to get me to sign a post-employment non-compete.
- walshemj 8y agoMisuse of trade secrets is a completely different law to "non competes"
- will_brown 8y ago“Trade secrets” according to the Supreme Court anyway, are a “Common Law exception” to non-competes.