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> The fact that they are essentially illegal in California, and California's economy works shows that they are unnecessary and also don't hinder technological d

> The fact that they are essentially illegal in California, and California's economy works shows that they are unnecessary and also don't hinder technological development. The general rules that most states use for deciding when non-competes are enforceable aren't that bad. E.g. if you work at a bakery, you're not going to be allowed to open your own bakery two blocks away within a year, but it's fine if you do it a couple towns over. That doesn't seem especially crazy to me.

Volundr 4y ago
And if your employer is a national player? International?
gameman144 4y ago
I'm curious, why does that seem less crazy than the simpler case of being allowed to open a bakery two blocks away within a year?
dagw 4y ago
if you work at a bakery, you're not going to be allowed to open your own bakery two blocks away within a year What if you work at Starbucks and want to open your own coffee shop. Is it reasonable that you should not be able to open a coffee shop within two blocks of any existing Starbucks?
- mcv 4y ago
  And if Starbucks closes a shop because of unionisation, can the employees reopen it as a co-op? I certainly think that should be possible, and encouraged.
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
Why should employers have any control over your life whatsoever after they're not paying you?
- Terretta 4y ago
  their investment in teaching you their IP -- that's the theory you trade getting to learn for agreeing not to use it against them for a while -- is the theory at line worker level i'd argue this is nonsense, at 'how to mill iPhones from a single block of metal' or 'self driving car brain' maybe its real, but there are ndas and patents for that
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Yeah, that theory's a load. If the fear is formal IP theft then as you point out there are harder protections for that. If the fear is they'll learn your business practices and use them to compete with you, then you suck and they deserve to win. Because you're the established business with all the advantages and existing customers, even if they have the capital lying around to start a copy-cat business tomorrow you should be able to wipe the floor with them and make sure they never get off the ground.
  - monksy 4y ago
    > their investment in teaching you their IP -- that's the theory In your example, they cannot claim the skills and basic education that gets you up to the point of "how they mill iphones within a context" (i.e. the milling, operating the machinery, physical properties of the metal, etc) They are not legally able to include a huge educational backbone of knowledge (that they may have taught you) as their prioptary IP. Again, NCs don't prevent that disemination. That disemination can happen without employment.
    - Terretta 4y ago
      context on the milling skills: https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-apple-does-93bea02a3bbf https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-...
  - gameman144 4y ago
    I really get a kick out of this thinking, because there's literally no alternative from the employer's point of view. If you want to hire someone to do a job, you have to teach them how to do the job. To impose punitive measures after-the-fact because someone taught you how to do a job that they needed you to do seems hilarious even on the face of it. To be clear, saying "You're not allowed to use our IP or our machinery or our supplies" is totally reasonable; if I quit Starbucks, then of course I won't have Starbucks machines or merch. To say that you're not allowed to do something because they happened to be the ones to train you seems just silly. I get very strong middle-school vibes, where you introduce your friend-from-another-school to your group, then get mad when they become better friends with someone else than they are with you.
snarf21 4y ago
That seems crazy to me. Why should I have to move to start a business? If I can start a new bakery with no following and run the old out of business, then it seems like the industry was ripe for competition anyway. I do think it is reasonable for the competes to include not stealing recipes or IP or other capital from the business. Contacts are harder to legislate but there is a difference between remembering your best contacts and contacting them via LinkedIn vs exporting a contact list from your company's Salesforce and using that.
AlexandrB 4y ago
This example seems extra crazy. The only entities it protects are large companies. The biggest threat to a local bakery is not their employee leaving and starting their own bakery, but a large bakery chain coming in and undercutting their prices. No non-compete will help with that. Meanwhile, the large bakery chain does benefit from being able to stop you from baking for someone else if you leave their employ. At a minimum it helps them suppress wages.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  It could increase wages as labor/labour would have one less worker in the pool increasing the demand and wages.
kelnos 4y ago
What? No, that bakery example is completely crazy.
scottLobster 4y ago
Uh, how does that make any sense? What if the local bakery sucks? Why is the bakery you work at immune to competition but the bakery a couple of towns over isn't? How are you examining these rules that it "doesn't seem especially crazy?", what's the rationale? Capitalism requires competition to produce positive outcomes, the only reason to limit or ban competition is in the edge cases where the model doesn't work (patents, utilities, etc). Frankly we have too many regulatory moats as it is IMO.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Volundr 4y ago

And if your employer is a national player? International?

gameman144 4y ago

I'm curious, why does that seem less crazy than the simpler case of being allowed to open a bakery two blocks away within a year?

dagw 4y ago

if you work at a bakery, you're not going to be allowed to open your own bakery two blocks away within a year What if you work at Starbucks and want to open your own coffee shop. Is it reasonable that you should not be able to open a coffee shop within two blocks of any existing Starbucks?

mcv 4y ago
And if Starbucks closes a shop because of unionisation, can the employees reopen it as a co-op? I certainly think that should be possible, and encouraged.

dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago

Why should employers have any control over your life whatsoever after they're not paying you?

Terretta 4y ago
their investment in teaching you their IP -- that's the theory you trade getting to learn for agreeing not to use it against them for a while -- is the theory at line worker level i'd argue this is nonsense, at 'how to mill iPhones from a single block of metal' or 'self driving car brain' maybe its real, but there are ndas and patents for that
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Yeah, that theory's a load. If the fear is formal IP theft then as you point out there are harder protections for that. If the fear is they'll learn your business practices and use them to compete with you, then you suck and they deserve to win. Because you're the established business with all the advantages and existing customers, even if they have the capital lying around to start a copy-cat business tomorrow you should be able to wipe the floor with them and make sure they never get off the ground.
- monksy 4y ago
  > their investment in teaching you their IP -- that's the theory In your example, they cannot claim the skills and basic education that gets you up to the point of "how they mill iphones within a context" (i.e. the milling, operating the machinery, physical properties of the metal, etc) They are not legally able to include a huge educational backbone of knowledge (that they may have taught you) as their prioptary IP. Again, NCs don't prevent that disemination. That disemination can happen without employment.
  - Terretta 4y ago
    context on the milling skills: https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-apple-does-93bea02a3bbf https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-...
- gameman144 4y ago
  I really get a kick out of this thinking, because there's literally no alternative from the employer's point of view. If you want to hire someone to do a job, you have to teach them how to do the job. To impose punitive measures after-the-fact because someone taught you how to do a job that they needed you to do seems hilarious even on the face of it. To be clear, saying "You're not allowed to use our IP or our machinery or our supplies" is totally reasonable; if I quit Starbucks, then of course I won't have Starbucks machines or merch. To say that you're not allowed to do something because they happened to be the ones to train you seems just silly. I get very strong middle-school vibes, where you introduce your friend-from-another-school to your group, then get mad when they become better friends with someone else than they are with you.

snarf21 4y ago

That seems crazy to me. Why should I have to move to start a business? If I can start a new bakery with no following and run the old out of business, then it seems like the industry was ripe for competition anyway. I do think it is reasonable for the competes to include not stealing recipes or IP or other capital from the business. Contacts are harder to legislate but there is a difference between remembering your best contacts and contacting them via LinkedIn vs exporting a contact list from your company's Salesforce and using that.

AlexandrB 4y ago

This example seems extra crazy. The only entities it protects are large companies. The biggest threat to a local bakery is not their employee leaving and starting their own bakery, but a large bakery chain coming in and undercutting their prices. No non-compete will help with that. Meanwhile, the large bakery chain does benefit from being able to stop you from baking for someone else if you leave their employ. At a minimum it helps them suppress wages.

ipaddr 4y ago
It could increase wages as labor/labour would have one less worker in the pool increasing the demand and wages.

kelnos 4y ago

What? No, that bakery example is completely crazy.

scottLobster 4y ago

Uh, how does that make any sense? What if the local bakery sucks? Why is the bakery you work at immune to competition but the bakery a couple of towns over isn't? How are you examining these rules that it "doesn't seem especially crazy?", what's the rationale? Capitalism requires competition to produce positive outcomes, the only reason to limit or ban competition is in the edge cases where the model doesn't work (patents, utilities, etc). Frankly we have too many regulatory moats as it is IMO.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]