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> We need this to protect our business. > It’s never enforced. If these are true, why would a company with 232.9 billion in revenue be afraid of paying an emp
by abj 7y ago
> We need this to protect our business.
> It’s never enforced.
If these are true, why would a company with 232.9 billion in revenue be afraid of paying an employee's salary only when the non compete is enforced?
If the non compete is almost never enforced this agreement would cost the company under 0.01% of total company wide employee spend. Surely if the knowledge was that important to the business the company would easily make up the "extra" salary paid in revenue.
It's strange that a company that large wouldn't agree to pay salary if it's chosing to enforce the non-compete. It seems like the choice is motivated by something else than reason. Tradition? Optimizing locally for cost reduction?
- spyspy 7y agoMan if I could just work there a month and then quit with 18 months of guaranteed paid severance...
- wmf 7y agoPresumably in that case they could avoid paying you by canceling the non-compete. They could decide whether the information you learned during your one month is worth paying you.
- abj 7y agoThat does sound nice. Ideally though the company wouldn't chose to enforce the non compete because the new employee hadn't picked up any secrets worth sharing in a month. Actually, this might incentivise a new employee to hunt for secrets so they could quit as soon as possible and enjoy their serverance. That might not be ideal.
- not2b 7y agoEven in the absence of non-compete clauses, you're still obliged to keep your company's trade secrets when you leave, or they can sue you. California companies sue each other all the time over things like this.
- kevin_b_er 7y agoReason does not enter into it. It is the very soul and nature of a US corporation: greed and sociopathy. The worker is a resource to be exploited by the corporation. The sociopathy denies any compassion. The only use for "reason" is reason how to make more money. If you're going to leave the company, you need to be maximally punished. That is done through a sneaky contract that prevents you from getting gainful employment elsewhere.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post ideological battle comments to HN. They lead to ideological flamewars, which are predictable, tedious, and off topic. This is in the site guidelines; would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html