9 ms·

Enslaving your interns for evil and profit

151 points by tghw 15y ago

mhp 15y ago
This is absolutely ludicrous. Non-competes for interns? I hope the company he worked at isn't in California where their non compete would be void.
gamblor956 15y ago
Non-competes are not enforceable against non-exempt workers (i.e., hourly, part-time, or independent contractors) in most states, but especially in blue states. In some states, including California, non-competes are not even enforceable against full-time, fairly high-level employees. You or the intern needs to talk to a lawyer, b/c it sounds like the NLRB should be having a chat with the potential employee's former employer.
- larrik 15y ago
  Forget about a lawyer, the intern should call the state's labor board. They'll cut them down to size for free and be thrilled to do it. Seriously, I often see advice on HN to lawyer up over an employee disagreement, but your home state's government probably already has a ton of people waiting to jump all over that situation for you. The laws are so employee-friendly it's often pretty unfair.
  - mcknz 15y ago
    Even if the intern is justified in doing so, taking legal/regulatory action might not be the best way to start a career. A company this unreasonable may actually enjoy personal and professional destruction.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      Downvoted for spreading FUD. Software development is a vast enough field that you can't be possibly be blacklisted.
      - Retric 15y ago
        Beyond that, I would be more likely to higher someone who stood up for themselves in such a situation.
earl 15y ago
Benjamin's article is bullshit. The only way to deal with crap like that is name and shame, so that the next time a prospective employee googles the company they notice that they have a habit of fucking employees. Personally, since Fog Creek is also in nyc, I'm guessing theladders. theladders is in nyc, indeed is in austin/bay area, simply hired is bay area, I'm not sure where dice and monster are
- mhp 15y ago
  No, they are in Maryland. I don't care about naming the company. I care about putting the kid in a bad position.
  - earl 15y ago
    Said kid is already screwed. You now have a choice: either the next time a prospective employee or intern googles the offending company your blog comes up as a warning, or it doesn't. Which do you think will be more effective preventing behavior like this in the future? Imagine this post title: "X screwed an intern out of an awesome internship at fog creek" rather than a vague warning to interns not to sign noncompetes.
    - droithomme 15y ago
      It's not the specific company that is the problem. It's not like they are the only ones doing this. The problem is the practice in general. Not signing noncompetes isn't a vague warning, it's very specific. I would extend it from interns to everyone other than senior sales staff.
- AdamTReineke 15y ago
  Dice is in Des Moines, IA. Monster is HQ'd in Maynard, Mass.
- gecko 15y ago
  It's not theladders. It's in Maryland, not New York.
deleted 15y ago
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deleted 15y ago
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- CurtHagenlocher 15y ago
  That says that you can't work on a related product. It doesn't say that you can't work at a company which happens to have a related product. Do you know if this is current? It's dated from 13 years ago.
_delirium 15y ago
I'm curious how this even came up. Did the prospective employee make the mistake of actively asking the former employer for permission? Not many companies are monitoring their former interns closely enough to even notice where they end up later. Even if they did look, they wouldn't typically hear about it until past the interview stage, unless I'm missing some reason the interview invitation would be publicly accessible. A non-lawyer guess at a reasonable course of action: Unless you're a high-level employee with particularly sensitive knowledge, it's probably not a good idea to try to pre-clear future employment with the former employer. That just gives them an excuse to over-interpret the scope and tell you "no". Instead it'd make more sense to evaluate compliance yourself, and if in your judgment the job doesn't violate your agreements, go ahead and take it. No reason to go out of your way to even tell the former employer about it; the odds are heavily against them noticing and caring enough to sue a low-level employee.
- losvedir 15y ago
  One idea is maybe someone at the hiring company called the former company to follow up on a reference. Usually, I'd expect that to come later in the process, but maybe not.
- gecko 15y ago
  The candidate withdrew his application, citing his noncompete. I followed up with him to verify there wasn't a misunderstanding, and he forwarded an email with his employer saying there wasn't.
  - rdl 15y ago
    Would the former employer have sued him directly? At some point, civil disobedience is the right societal answer to this kind of thing, even if it's a bad choice for an individual. I'd be willing to get sued over a non-compete (if it were genuinely a case of not competing, and where I thought a judge/jury would support me, especially if it were a very telegenic case like this), but I can see where a 20 year old kid wouldn't.
  - microarchitect 15y ago
lojack 15y ago
Non-competes don't prevent you from working at other companies. They only prevent you from actively pursuing work elsewhere. If you signed a non-compete for working on the iPhone you would be allowed to accept a job at HTC, but you couldn't go "I work at Apple and know all their secrets so hire me!" Additionally they can't prevent you from finding work. If you had a very specific expertise on phone antennas, and you had a non-compete for working on the iPhone, the contract would virtually have no relevance.
alexsb92 15y ago
Is there any precedent in the US of a non-compete being anti-constitutional? As far as I know, most non-competes were determined anti constitutional, as you can't force someone to not get a job. The only time they'd still be viable, would be in the type of examples that OP gave.
- evan_ 15y ago
  not really sure how that would apply- the constitution exists to define the powers of the government, and a non-compete contract would be a civil matter between a company and an individual.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Civil matters are still enforced by the government, and subject to legal scrutiny. You can't hire an assassin and then sue them for breach of contract if they fail to kill the target, for instance.
  - jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
    Any civil matter can also be regulated (regulations can apply to anything, really). But in a practical sense, regulations pertaining to business and professions like this are handled by the states, while the feds really only get into it when it's a matter of worker safety, taxation, those kinds of things. This is why you can laugh at a noncompete in California, while up in Washington, Microsoft gets to own its employees' dreams for years after they leave the company. Non-competes are so unbelievably worker-hostile that they should really be outlawed everywhere. I really like the idea of forcing the employer who's enforcing the non-compete to pay full salary for the duration of the non-compete. It seems only fair that if you're trying to keep me off the market because I'm so potentially devastating to your business that you should pay for the privilege.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
Sukotto 15y ago
If what I'm doing is so sensitive that my employer makes me sign a non-compete, they have to agree to pay me for the duration. Then it comes down to just how valuable they think your experience really is. I encourage everyone to negotiate a time limit and compensation into any employment contract that includes a non-compete.
- 0x12 15y ago
  Excellent advice, really. When you give something you should get something in return.
brianbreslin 15y ago
man i wish college kids were given more training before diving into an internship from the what to expect standpoint. This could be a 20 minute class at their career centers in college: these are the X things you need to know (you are not expected to work 100 hours a week free, don't sign Non-Competes, do ask for letters of recommendation, etc).
- kbatten 15y ago
  Internships are supposed to be the real world training though. It seems highly unethical for companies to take advantage of interns because by definition interns are inexperienced. I had great internships and never felt like I had to be vigilant that the company was trying to take advantage of me, so I could spend my time learning. Its unfortunate that you are most likely correct that colleges should now be informing their students of things they need to avoid or deal with like this.
  - brianbreslin 15y ago
    I did a handful of internships in college, mostly irellevant to my current career and was fortunate to never be taken advantage of. i know many people who unfortunately were.
ajaimk 15y ago
It's a good thing that Non-Compete's aren't enforceable in certain states. California for one.
erikb 15y ago
After being an intern for 5 years of studying I hoped to get some tips, how to become the slave master now that I have pocketed my Master's finally.
jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
This doesn't help much unless they name the company. If companies that do this are named and shamed, it will tend to happen far less frequently. Also worth bringing up that this kind of thing is illegal in California. If you're wondering why Silicon Valley sprang up here instead of somewhere else, California's extremely worker-friendly professional code is one reason why.
- Natsu 15y ago
  I believe it's actually unenforceable, rather than illegal. The difference being that California courts will refuse to enforce the contract, while if the contracts were actually illegal, they'd punish companies for asking people to sign them. I've heard that some companies still offer them anyhow, hoping that you won't know they're unenforceable and will obey it anyhow. I also seem to remember a case where a company sued to enforce the non-compete in a non-California court. I don't know how that played out, exactly, and that case might still be pending, but the plaintiff seemed to think that another court might enforce the non-compete even if California's courts wouldn't.
  - j_baker 15y ago
    Not to mention that even if it is unenforceable, I would imagine that most employers would rather just hire someone else than deal with the legal issues involved in hiring that employee.
  - ahlatimer 15y ago
    They're apparently enforceable in Texas, although they don't seem to often be enforced (to the point that most people I've spoken with have the false notion that they are unenforceable). So it really depends on the state.
  - geebee 15y ago
    BTW, the bit about out of state enforcement in California came up in an earlier discussion. IANAL, but here was a link I found interesting... http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml The section under "Out-of-State Agreements and Multi-State Employer Strategies" "Who wins often depends upon a race to the courthouse. For multi-state employers it is often a rush to the courthouse to determine if a non-compete agreement is valid. The employer's strategy is to get an order outside of California in their favor. The employee or California prospective employer's strategy is to get an order within California in their favor. In the face of dueling, and opposing orders, the first to the courthouse may win because states often must give effect to orders from other courts." The site gives a few cases that illustrate this as well as some strategies.
impendia 15y ago
You seem to have taken some pains to not tell us who the offending employer was. May I ask why? Perhaps I am being naive, but if there is any reason to not publicly shame them here and now, then I don't understand it. Indeed, this would be very helpful to college students who got offered an internship here, googled them, and then found your blog post.
steve-howard 15y ago
Microsoft does make interns sign non-compete contracts. I have mine in front of me. It's much tighter in scope, however; I can't work on the same thing as I either worked on or learned confidential information about at MS for 6 months after employment. Not at all as bad as the one in the article, but not the worst.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  I distinctly remembered the intern employment contract including a non-compete clause (with a 1 year duration) limiting work on any competing product or project (rather than entire employers).. but I didn't have a copy of the contract to check so I withdrew my comment.
- e28eta 15y ago
  At Amazon I signed a 1 year non-compete as an intern. When I asked their HR dept about it, they told me not to worry because they'd never heard of it being enforced, but I wasn't particularly reassured.
mikeknoop 15y ago
I found this awesome explanation while searching for more information (specific to Missouri): http://www.mobar.org/journal/1998/mayjun/corrigan.htm http://www.mobar.org/journal/1998/mayjun/corrigan.htm
rdl 15y ago
If he's still looking, there are a bunch of California companies who would be happy to hire him.
dblock 15y ago
I second the recommendation in the post - don't sign a non-compete if you can. A past employer introduced a non-compete half way through my employment. Most engineers ignored repeated HR requests to sign it. I had a few 1:1 discussions with my boss during which I stared with a blank look. Then I just asked: "Have you signed it?" - I was never asked again.
ig1 15y ago
While I agree with the spirit of the post, some of it's is a bit inaccurate. FogCreek did used to run a job board (it was actually created by a FogCreek intern). When Stack Overflow's launched it's job board FogCreek's job board was merged with it in order to give Stack Overflow's board some traction (Joel Spolsky is a co-founder of both companies).
run4yourlives 15y ago
IANAL, but odds are that this "agreement" would be ruled as non-enforceable by most reasonable courts in the US. It's not like the guy was VP of software development. He was an intern. The whole reason he has the job is to presumably transfer the things he learns into various other roles. http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition-agreements.html http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition-agreemen... Both you guys should completely ignore the non-compete and see if they try to enforce it. That's a lot of money for the loss of an intern. :-)
- wanorris 15y ago
  If I were the intern in question, I would have withdrawn my application rather than proceed like that. I would never want to create an adversarial relation with a current or former employer unless they left me with no other alternative. It would suck to lose a shot at a great job, but I think it's worth the loss to maintain a reputation as a loyal team player (even if the employer seems unworthy of loyalty) and move on to a more worthy employer when I can find a way to do so that won't raise their ire. I would draw the line in situations where being a "team player" would require me to act unethically, but in the absence of something like that, I think that over the timeframe of a career, there is net value to being someone that former employers and coworkers recall positively rather than negatively.
larsberg 15y ago
I suspect the intern was using that as an excuse to go somewhere else. Usually, when this situation occurs, the prior firm's lawyers immediately send a notice of intent to file an injuction as well as a statement that the new firm must retain all data pertaining to that hire, as they may be required to disclose it at a later time. My wife is currently going through a non-compete negotiation, and she and most of my friends work in the finance industry here in Chicago, where this comes up for almost every employee who does decent work and tries to change employers.
jerf 15y ago
The capstone course at my university, like many others, was to be matched up with someone in the community and be given an actual task from their business, usually with the understanding that we were likely to produce such crappy code that it was going to be discarded anyhow. (Which was broadly accurate.) My group happened to draw a lawyer's office, which wouldn't have necessarily been a problem, except their first move was to get us a to sign a heavy-duty nondisclosure agreement. The prof brought this to us, and asked us if we were willing to sign this. My teammates were like, "uhhh", and by that point I'd been reading up enough on legal issues on the internet that I simply said "No." At which point my professor said "Yeah, I was just curious what your reactions would be. I was never going to let you sign these. Here's your new project...." And forget "intern", we were paying for this course! It's amazing what papers people will push at interns and such. If you're in that position, do not be afraid in the slightest to say no. One of two things will happen: They'll retract their request, or you'll get out of a bad situation before it turns really bad.
- jergason 15y ago
  A NDA is a much different beast than a non-compete clause. I have signed NDAs to work on school projects before, but that did not really affect anything I did outside of the class project. I don't think an NDA would close off any job opportunities. The subject of the article signed a non-compete clause, which prevented him from getting a good job opportunity. I don't think those have much in common.
  - jerf 15y ago
    You're right in general, but not in this specific case. The NDA was so strong that if read as written it basically forbade us from ever using anything we learned with them, for any purpose, ever. It did not narrow itself down to internal operations.... which we would not have been privy to anyhow! We weren't going to be sitting in on trials or hearing about their cases anyways. It was almost stronger than what you would consider a "noncompete" in that sense. And since it was a lawyer's office we were little inclined to assume they'd never exercise their claimed powers. And again, we were paying for this course, not being paid. (In fact their "due consideration" clause alone was a bit amusingly handwavy. It was nearly "for the due consideration of being graciously allowed into their presence to bask in the glow of their wisdom.")
theycallhimtom 15y ago
I don't understand why a company would choose to enforce a non compete in this situation. The main reason for having interns is to hire them once they graduate. I doubt Bob would consider working at that company again. So the company loses a potential employee and gains nothing.
rorrr 15y ago
You're asking interns to write a garbage collector during the interview?
- praptak 15y ago
  Why not? Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors. It should be a matter of presenting a known algorithm in pseudocode. Unless they expect the whiteboard code to compile and produce a fully working garbage collector.
  - blahedo 15y ago
    > Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors. In the required core? I'm not so sure that's true. The concept of garbage collection, yes. But garbage collection algorithms would usually be presented in courses like PL or maybe compilers, that are often in the "take 2 of 5" list or maybe even in pure electives. (This is true of a lot of "important" CS "core" algorithms and concepts---every CS department includes them in offered courses but the requirements are usually structured so that not all CS majors will be required to take them.)
    - arethuza 15y ago
      It was certainly true of the CS course I did in the 80s - as part of the second year (of four) Data Structures and Algorithms course we spent a lot of time looking at memory allocation and garbage collection. This was a compulsory course - even those folks doing joint degrees had to do it. I'd be amazed if a CS course didn't cover this kind of stuff.
      - blahedo 15y ago
        Well, it's hard to argue against your 25-year-old personal experience and your amazement. Less snarkily: I teach university-level CS, and of the five schools I've had direct involvement with (as student or faculty), all covered GC algorithms someplace but I think at least four of them, maybe all five, had at least one path through the major that would avoid covering them. I have researched the situation for certain "core" topics other than GC at dozens of top CS schools and I can promise you that there are many topics that are widely (and correctly) viewed as very important to CS but are not required even at many of the best schools.
darksaga 15y ago
I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes. On short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause.
darksaga 15y ago
I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes. On short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause.
darksaga 15y ago
I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes. In short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause. The majority of these are simply not enforceable. Also, in an economy with 10% unemployment, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge who would enforce these right now.
fab13n 15y ago
In France, such conditions are enforceable... if you pay the guy an indemnity essentially equal to his former salary * duration, for doing nothing instead of working for the competition. This ensures that such clauses are only enforced when it _really_ makes business sense. But they're often included in contracts anyway, because many employees ignore that they're unenforceable.
nandemo 15y ago
My previous company did something sneakier. They didn't ask us to sign a non-compete, they made an informal agreement with its clients and vendors not hire any of us. Now I have 3 years of experience in this specific field but, after being laid-off, no company in the field will hire me.
- lurker19 15y ago
  You are unemployed and the victim of a crime. You are perfectly positioned to take some time to work with a lawyer to make the world a better place and make some money from your troubles.

151 points by tghw 15y ago

mhp 15y ago

This is absolutely ludicrous. Non-competes for interns? I hope the company he worked at isn't in California where their non compete would be void.

gamblor956 15y ago

Non-competes are not enforceable against non-exempt workers (i.e., hourly, part-time, or independent contractors) in most states, but especially in blue states. In some states, including California, non-competes are not even enforceable against full-time, fairly high-level employees. You or the intern needs to talk to a lawyer, b/c it sounds like the NLRB should be having a chat with the potential employee's former employer.

larrik 15y ago
Forget about a lawyer, the intern should call the state's labor board. They'll cut them down to size for free and be thrilled to do it. Seriously, I often see advice on HN to lawyer up over an employee disagreement, but your home state's government probably already has a ton of people waiting to jump all over that situation for you. The laws are so employee-friendly it's often pretty unfair.
- mcknz 15y ago
  Even if the intern is justified in doing so, taking legal/regulatory action might not be the best way to start a career. A company this unreasonable may actually enjoy personal and professional destruction.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    Downvoted for spreading FUD. Software development is a vast enough field that you can't be possibly be blacklisted.
    - Retric 15y ago
      Beyond that, I would be more likely to higher someone who stood up for themselves in such a situation.

earl 15y ago

Benjamin's article is bullshit. The only way to deal with crap like that is name and shame, so that the next time a prospective employee googles the company they notice that they have a habit of fucking employees. Personally, since Fog Creek is also in nyc, I'm guessing theladders. theladders is in nyc, indeed is in austin/bay area, simply hired is bay area, I'm not sure where dice and monster are

mhp 15y ago
No, they are in Maryland. I don't care about naming the company. I care about putting the kid in a bad position.
- earl 15y ago
  Said kid is already screwed. You now have a choice: either the next time a prospective employee or intern googles the offending company your blog comes up as a warning, or it doesn't. Which do you think will be more effective preventing behavior like this in the future? Imagine this post title: "X screwed an intern out of an awesome internship at fog creek" rather than a vague warning to interns not to sign noncompetes.
  - droithomme 15y ago
    It's not the specific company that is the problem. It's not like they are the only ones doing this. The problem is the practice in general. Not signing noncompetes isn't a vague warning, it's very specific. I would extend it from interns to everyone other than senior sales staff.
AdamTReineke 15y ago
Dice is in Des Moines, IA. Monster is HQ'd in Maynard, Mass.
gecko 15y ago
It's not theladders. It's in Maryland, not New York.

deleted 15y ago

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CurtHagenlocher 15y ago
That says that you can't work on a related product. It doesn't say that you can't work at a company which happens to have a related product. Do you know if this is current? It's dated from 13 years ago.

_delirium 15y ago

I'm curious how this even came up. Did the prospective employee make the mistake of actively asking the former employer for permission? Not many companies are monitoring their former interns closely enough to even notice where they end up later. Even if they did look, they wouldn't typically hear about it until past the interview stage, unless I'm missing some reason the interview invitation would be publicly accessible. A non-lawyer guess at a reasonable course of action: Unless you're a high-level employee with particularly sensitive knowledge, it's probably not a good idea to try to pre-clear future employment with the former employer. That just gives them an excuse to over-interpret the scope and tell you "no". Instead it'd make more sense to evaluate compliance yourself, and if in your judgment the job doesn't violate your agreements, go ahead and take it. No reason to go out of your way to even tell the former employer about it; the odds are heavily against them noticing and caring enough to sue a low-level employee.

losvedir 15y ago
One idea is maybe someone at the hiring company called the former company to follow up on a reference. Usually, I'd expect that to come later in the process, but maybe not.
gecko 15y ago
The candidate withdrew his application, citing his noncompete. I followed up with him to verify there wasn't a misunderstanding, and he forwarded an email with his employer saying there wasn't.
- rdl 15y ago
  Would the former employer have sued him directly? At some point, civil disobedience is the right societal answer to this kind of thing, even if it's a bad choice for an individual. I'd be willing to get sued over a non-compete (if it were genuinely a case of not competing, and where I thought a judge/jury would support me, especially if it were a very telegenic case like this), but I can see where a 20 year old kid wouldn't.
- microarchitect 15y ago

lojack 15y ago

Non-competes don't prevent you from working at other companies. They only prevent you from actively pursuing work elsewhere. If you signed a non-compete for working on the iPhone you would be allowed to accept a job at HTC, but you couldn't go "I work at Apple and know all their secrets so hire me!" Additionally they can't prevent you from finding work. If you had a very specific expertise on phone antennas, and you had a non-compete for working on the iPhone, the contract would virtually have no relevance.

alexsb92 15y ago

Is there any precedent in the US of a non-compete being anti-constitutional? As far as I know, most non-competes were determined anti constitutional, as you can't force someone to not get a job. The only time they'd still be viable, would be in the type of examples that OP gave.

evan_ 15y ago
not really sure how that would apply- the constitution exists to define the powers of the government, and a non-compete contract would be a civil matter between a company and an individual.
- ajross 15y ago
  Civil matters are still enforced by the government, and subject to legal scrutiny. You can't hire an assassin and then sue them for breach of contract if they fail to kill the target, for instance.
- jeffreymcmanus 15y ago
  Any civil matter can also be regulated (regulations can apply to anything, really). But in a practical sense, regulations pertaining to business and professions like this are handled by the states, while the feds really only get into it when it's a matter of worker safety, taxation, those kinds of things. This is why you can laugh at a noncompete in California, while up in Washington, Microsoft gets to own its employees' dreams for years after they leave the company. Non-competes are so unbelievably worker-hostile that they should really be outlawed everywhere. I really like the idea of forcing the employer who's enforcing the non-compete to pay full salary for the duration of the non-compete. It seems only fair that if you're trying to keep me off the market because I'm so potentially devastating to your business that you should pay for the privilege.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

Sukotto 15y ago

If what I'm doing is so sensitive that my employer makes me sign a non-compete, they have to agree to pay me for the duration. Then it comes down to just how valuable they think your experience really is. I encourage everyone to negotiate a time limit and compensation into any employment contract that includes a non-compete.

0x12 15y ago
Excellent advice, really. When you give something you should get something in return.

brianbreslin 15y ago

man i wish college kids were given more training before diving into an internship from the what to expect standpoint. This could be a 20 minute class at their career centers in college: these are the X things you need to know (you are not expected to work 100 hours a week free, don't sign Non-Competes, do ask for letters of recommendation, etc).

kbatten 15y ago
Internships are supposed to be the real world training though. It seems highly unethical for companies to take advantage of interns because by definition interns are inexperienced. I had great internships and never felt like I had to be vigilant that the company was trying to take advantage of me, so I could spend my time learning. Its unfortunate that you are most likely correct that colleges should now be informing their students of things they need to avoid or deal with like this.
- brianbreslin 15y ago
  I did a handful of internships in college, mostly irellevant to my current career and was fortunate to never be taken advantage of. i know many people who unfortunately were.

ajaimk 15y ago

It's a good thing that Non-Compete's aren't enforceable in certain states. California for one.

erikb 15y ago

After being an intern for 5 years of studying I hoped to get some tips, how to become the slave master now that I have pocketed my Master's finally.

jeffreymcmanus 15y ago

This doesn't help much unless they name the company. If companies that do this are named and shamed, it will tend to happen far less frequently. Also worth bringing up that this kind of thing is illegal in California. If you're wondering why Silicon Valley sprang up here instead of somewhere else, California's extremely worker-friendly professional code is one reason why.

Natsu 15y ago
I believe it's actually unenforceable, rather than illegal. The difference being that California courts will refuse to enforce the contract, while if the contracts were actually illegal, they'd punish companies for asking people to sign them. I've heard that some companies still offer them anyhow, hoping that you won't know they're unenforceable and will obey it anyhow. I also seem to remember a case where a company sued to enforce the non-compete in a non-California court. I don't know how that played out, exactly, and that case might still be pending, but the plaintiff seemed to think that another court might enforce the non-compete even if California's courts wouldn't.
- j_baker 15y ago
  Not to mention that even if it is unenforceable, I would imagine that most employers would rather just hire someone else than deal with the legal issues involved in hiring that employee.
- ahlatimer 15y ago
  They're apparently enforceable in Texas, although they don't seem to often be enforced (to the point that most people I've spoken with have the false notion that they are unenforceable). So it really depends on the state.
- geebee 15y ago
  BTW, the bit about out of state enforcement in California came up in an earlier discussion. IANAL, but here was a link I found interesting... http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml http://lawzilla.com/content/noncompete.shtml The section under "Out-of-State Agreements and Multi-State Employer Strategies" "Who wins often depends upon a race to the courthouse. For multi-state employers it is often a rush to the courthouse to determine if a non-compete agreement is valid. The employer's strategy is to get an order outside of California in their favor. The employee or California prospective employer's strategy is to get an order within California in their favor. In the face of dueling, and opposing orders, the first to the courthouse may win because states often must give effect to orders from other courts." The site gives a few cases that illustrate this as well as some strategies.

impendia 15y ago

You seem to have taken some pains to not tell us who the offending employer was. May I ask why? Perhaps I am being naive, but if there is any reason to not publicly shame them here and now, then I don't understand it. Indeed, this would be very helpful to college students who got offered an internship here, googled them, and then found your blog post.

steve-howard 15y ago

Microsoft does make interns sign non-compete contracts. I have mine in front of me. It's much tighter in scope, however; I can't work on the same thing as I either worked on or learned confidential information about at MS for 6 months after employment. Not at all as bad as the one in the article, but not the worst.

dangrossman 15y ago
I distinctly remembered the intern employment contract including a non-compete clause (with a 1 year duration) limiting work on any competing product or project (rather than entire employers).. but I didn't have a copy of the contract to check so I withdrew my comment.
e28eta 15y ago
At Amazon I signed a 1 year non-compete as an intern. When I asked their HR dept about it, they told me not to worry because they'd never heard of it being enforced, but I wasn't particularly reassured.

mikeknoop 15y ago

I found this awesome explanation while searching for more information (specific to Missouri): http://www.mobar.org/journal/1998/mayjun/corrigan.htm http://www.mobar.org/journal/1998/mayjun/corrigan.htm

rdl 15y ago

If he's still looking, there are a bunch of California companies who would be happy to hire him.

dblock 15y ago

I second the recommendation in the post - don't sign a non-compete if you can. A past employer introduced a non-compete half way through my employment. Most engineers ignored repeated HR requests to sign it. I had a few 1:1 discussions with my boss during which I stared with a blank look. Then I just asked: "Have you signed it?" - I was never asked again.

ig1 15y ago

While I agree with the spirit of the post, some of it's is a bit inaccurate. FogCreek did used to run a job board (it was actually created by a FogCreek intern). When Stack Overflow's launched it's job board FogCreek's job board was merged with it in order to give Stack Overflow's board some traction (Joel Spolsky is a co-founder of both companies).

run4yourlives 15y ago

IANAL, but odds are that this "agreement" would be ruled as non-enforceable by most reasonable courts in the US. It's not like the guy was VP of software development. He was an intern. The whole reason he has the job is to presumably transfer the things he learns into various other roles. http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition-agreements.html http://www.heydary.com/publications/non-competition-agreemen... Both you guys should completely ignore the non-compete and see if they try to enforce it. That's a lot of money for the loss of an intern. :-)

wanorris 15y ago
If I were the intern in question, I would have withdrawn my application rather than proceed like that. I would never want to create an adversarial relation with a current or former employer unless they left me with no other alternative. It would suck to lose a shot at a great job, but I think it's worth the loss to maintain a reputation as a loyal team player (even if the employer seems unworthy of loyalty) and move on to a more worthy employer when I can find a way to do so that won't raise their ire. I would draw the line in situations where being a "team player" would require me to act unethically, but in the absence of something like that, I think that over the timeframe of a career, there is net value to being someone that former employers and coworkers recall positively rather than negatively.

larsberg 15y ago

I suspect the intern was using that as an excuse to go somewhere else. Usually, when this situation occurs, the prior firm's lawyers immediately send a notice of intent to file an injuction as well as a statement that the new firm must retain all data pertaining to that hire, as they may be required to disclose it at a later time. My wife is currently going through a non-compete negotiation, and she and most of my friends work in the finance industry here in Chicago, where this comes up for almost every employee who does decent work and tries to change employers.

jerf 15y ago

The capstone course at my university, like many others, was to be matched up with someone in the community and be given an actual task from their business, usually with the understanding that we were likely to produce such crappy code that it was going to be discarded anyhow. (Which was broadly accurate.) My group happened to draw a lawyer's office, which wouldn't have necessarily been a problem, except their first move was to get us a to sign a heavy-duty nondisclosure agreement. The prof brought this to us, and asked us if we were willing to sign this. My teammates were like, "uhhh", and by that point I'd been reading up enough on legal issues on the internet that I simply said "No." At which point my professor said "Yeah, I was just curious what your reactions would be. I was never going to let you sign these. Here's your new project...." And forget "intern", we were paying for this course! It's amazing what papers people will push at interns and such. If you're in that position, do not be afraid in the slightest to say no. One of two things will happen: They'll retract their request, or you'll get out of a bad situation before it turns really bad.

jergason 15y ago
A NDA is a much different beast than a non-compete clause. I have signed NDAs to work on school projects before, but that did not really affect anything I did outside of the class project. I don't think an NDA would close off any job opportunities. The subject of the article signed a non-compete clause, which prevented him from getting a good job opportunity. I don't think those have much in common.
- jerf 15y ago
  You're right in general, but not in this specific case. The NDA was so strong that if read as written it basically forbade us from ever using anything we learned with them, for any purpose, ever. It did not narrow itself down to internal operations.... which we would not have been privy to anyhow! We weren't going to be sitting in on trials or hearing about their cases anyways. It was almost stronger than what you would consider a "noncompete" in that sense. And since it was a lawyer's office we were little inclined to assume they'd never exercise their claimed powers. And again, we were paying for this course, not being paid. (In fact their "due consideration" clause alone was a bit amusingly handwavy. It was nearly "for the due consideration of being graciously allowed into their presence to bask in the glow of their wisdom.")

theycallhimtom 15y ago

I don't understand why a company would choose to enforce a non compete in this situation. The main reason for having interns is to hire them once they graduate. I doubt Bob would consider working at that company again. So the company loses a potential employee and gains nothing.

rorrr 15y ago

You're asking interns to write a garbage collector during the interview?

praptak 15y ago
Why not? Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors. It should be a matter of presenting a known algorithm in pseudocode. Unless they expect the whiteboard code to compile and produce a fully working garbage collector.
- blahedo 15y ago
  > Any decent CS course covers garbage collectors. In the required core? I'm not so sure that's true. The concept of garbage collection, yes. But garbage collection algorithms would usually be presented in courses like PL or maybe compilers, that are often in the "take 2 of 5" list or maybe even in pure electives. (This is true of a lot of "important" CS "core" algorithms and concepts---every CS department includes them in offered courses but the requirements are usually structured so that not all CS majors will be required to take them.)
  - arethuza 15y ago
    It was certainly true of the CS course I did in the 80s - as part of the second year (of four) Data Structures and Algorithms course we spent a lot of time looking at memory allocation and garbage collection. This was a compulsory course - even those folks doing joint degrees had to do it. I'd be amazed if a CS course didn't cover this kind of stuff.
    - blahedo 15y ago
      Well, it's hard to argue against your 25-year-old personal experience and your amazement. Less snarkily: I teach university-level CS, and of the five schools I've had direct involvement with (as student or faculty), all covered GC algorithms someplace but I think at least four of them, maybe all five, had at least one path through the major that would avoid covering them. I have researched the situation for certain "core" topics other than GC at dozens of top CS schools and I can promise you that there are many topics that are widely (and correctly) viewed as very important to CS but are not required even at many of the best schools.

darksaga 15y ago

I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes. On short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause.

darksaga 15y ago

I've signed them when asked and have only been brought into court once. The judge threw the case out in under 10 minutes. In short, you can't keep someone being gainfully employed simply because you signed a non-compete clause. The majority of these are simply not enforceable. Also, in an economy with 10% unemployment, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a judge who would enforce these right now.

fab13n 15y ago

In France, such conditions are enforceable... if you pay the guy an indemnity essentially equal to his former salary * duration, for doing nothing instead of working for the competition. This ensures that such clauses are only enforced when it _really_ makes business sense. But they're often included in contracts anyway, because many employees ignore that they're unenforceable.

nandemo 15y ago

My previous company did something sneakier. They didn't ask us to sign a non-compete, they made an informal agreement with its clients and vendors not hire any of us. Now I have 3 years of experience in this specific field but, after being laid-off, no company in the field will hire me.

lurker19 15y ago
You are unemployed and the victim of a crime. You are perfectly positioned to take some time to work with a lawyer to make the world a better place and make some money from your troubles.