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There are situations in which non-competes are enforceable in CA, just not for regular employees. For instance, if you sell a company you own in part or whole,
by staticautomatic 7y ago
There are situations in which non-competes are enforceable in CA, just not for regular employees. For instance, if you sell a company you own in part or whole, a non-compete with the acquirer is enforceable.
- staticautomatic 7y agoIdk why anyone is down voting me. I consult on lawsuits for a living and recently worked on one where all the parties, lawyers, and the judge agreed that the non-compete was both valid and enforceable in exactly this situation.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dang 7y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines by going on about downvotes. Users will often come along and provide corrective upvotes (edit: your original comment has now been heavily upvoted), and then comments like this linger on, no longer accurate but just adding noise. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- your-nanny 7y agobecause voting on HN is broken.
- your-nanny 7y agofirst rule of HN voting is don't talk about HN voting, even if it's friggin broken and lame.
- your-nanny 7y ago-2 I should be proud. hn's voting system is trash and they do their best to make everyone look the other way. kind of dystopian.
- dang 7y agoWould you please stop this? It's strictly noise, and we're trying for better signal/noise, not worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- your-nanny 7y agoI know what the guidelines are. I'm protesting them.
- rolltiide 7y agoTalking about downvotes is against the rules here So even in circumstances where the consensus is just inaccurate, and even though that results in rate-limiting you removing your opportunity to engage in a discussion, merely talking about this circumstance simply exacerbates it The mods think this is useful Welcome to HackerNews!
- dang 7y agoIt's not that we think that is useful; it's that subthreads like this one are useless. A clear example for why we have that rule. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rolltiide 7y ago(“Substantive version”) Talking about the consensus is against the rules here So even in circumstances where the consensus is just inaccurate, and even though that results in rate-limiting you removing your opportunity to engage in a discussion, merely talking about this circumstance simply exacerbates it This is considered to keep comments constructive and substantive, just like this comment! Welcome to HackerNews!
- ozim 7y agoI think they downvoted you because that is totally different context than what discussion is about. We are not talking about CEO level agreements but simple workers.
- trjordan 7y agoI sold a two person company to a fifty person company, which triggered this situation. After the acquisition, I was a "normal worker" by most definitions.
- staticautomatic 7y agoI'm not arguing against the point. I'm simply clarifying-- for everyone's benefit-- that the assertion that "non-competes are unenforceable in CA" is not universally true.
- maccard 7y agoYou can be a simple worker and fall afoul of the above - if you have any options or stock you would be considered a part owner and then subject to a possible non compete, even as engineer #n
- staticautomatic 7y agoHow does this work in practice? When you accept employment, you sign a non-compete which commences at the close of a future acquisition? I don't doubt that it's possible but I'm skeptical of the idea that a company can make a unilateral decision that's legally binding on you as an individual simply by virtue of the fact that you're a stock-holder. Has anyone here signed such an agreement? I'd be genuinely interested in reading the non-compete language.
- maccard 7y agoNo, when you're acquired as part of being acquired you sign a non-compete agreement. You're probably renegotiating salary/perks at that point so you'll likely be signing a new contract anyway.
- mrandish 7y agoYou are absolutely correct. I went through exactly this when a large valley tech company bought the startup I founded and I joined the company as part of the deal. My lawyer explained it as "For regular employees these aren't enforceable but you're when you get millions of dollars personally, this is part of what they get in return." Seemed fair enough and we also negotiated the wording to be pretty specific. Basically, I couldn't go make another version of the products they purchased from me as part of the acquisition. However, if I wanted to quit and compete against any of their other pre-existing products I could (even though I wouldn't want to anyway).