5 ms·

This is exceptionally poor legal advice. Non-competes are legit if they are narrowly limited in time and scope. It's perfectly fine for a company to demand tha

by ccleve 4y ago

This is exceptionally poor legal advice. Non-competes are legit if they are narrowly limited in time and scope. It's perfectly fine for a company to demand that if they hand over their proprietary know-how to you, know-how that has cost them years to acquire, you won't take it to the competitor across the street. And no, an NDA is not enough to protect them. They own this information, not you, and no, you can't take it. NDAs are legit for obvious reasons. Work-for-hire clauses are absolutely required. If a company is paying you, they own what you create on company time and company equipment. No, you can't take it and sell it elsewhere. It's perfectly fine for you to resist signing a clause that says they own what you create offsite (so long as it's not related to your day job), but a company cannot continue to operate if employees can take what the company paid for.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago
Restricting the collective progress of humanity so that investors can make back their money.
- mordae 4y ago
  Restricting the collective progress of humanity so that investors can profit. It's never about making the money back, is it?
dilyevsky 4y ago
Maybe they are legal (definitely not here in California) but the moral argument you’re making doesn’t make much sense because it works both ways - company has no intention of unlearning your past years of experience when you leave and so neither must you
feoren 4y ago
> It's perfectly fine for a company to demand that if they hand over their proprietary know-how to you, know-how that has cost them years to acquire, you won't take it to the competitor across the street. This never happens. For software developers, most "proprietary know-how" is awful in-house inner platforms that work like shit but you're forced to use it because otherwise some senior vice president would have to admit he made a bad decision 9 years ago. The companies who try hardest to protect their trade secrets are exactly those companies with the dumbest secrets. There's absolutely no risk to the company that their employees will take their competitive advantage to some competitor "across the street". What actually happens is that the company uses this as a prison fence to keep their employees from being able to leave when they treat them like shit. > If a company is paying you, they own what you create on company time and company equipment You're misrepresenting what those clauses say. Those clauses actually say "literally anything you ever do from the time of signing this document until the time you quit, we own, if we want it." If you draw an idea for a new fusion reactor on the back of a napkin late one night in a bar, your company now owns all rights to that design, and you are never allowed to do anything with it, ever. Yes, that's what they say. Yes, they're bullshit. That's why everyone hates them.
gnicholas 4y ago
The WFH analysis seemed incorrect to me also, as a former lawyer. It seems like the advice is geared toward a potential employee, not a potential contractor. If you're a contractor, it's not true that > If you work for a software hub, any SaaS app you build over the weekend will belong to the company, regardless of whether you do it with company property or not — as it's related to the company's business. Also, I'm not sure what to make of this claim: > Belonging to the company means everything, not just the IP — the revenue, the code, and the good vibes. Isn't this assumed, for both employment and contracting? If you're writing code for someone, then yes they own the code, the associated IP, the revenue they're going to generate with it, and the "good vibes". Which one of these things would an employee or contractor think he's entitled to?

by ccleve 4y ago

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

Restricting the collective progress of humanity so that investors can make back their money.

mordae 4y ago
Restricting the collective progress of humanity so that investors can profit. It's never about making the money back, is it?

dilyevsky 4y ago

Maybe they are legal (definitely not here in California) but the moral argument you’re making doesn’t make much sense because it works both ways - company has no intention of unlearning your past years of experience when you leave and so neither must you

feoren 4y ago

> It's perfectly fine for a company to demand that if they hand over their proprietary know-how to you, know-how that has cost them years to acquire, you won't take it to the competitor across the street. This never happens. For software developers, most "proprietary know-how" is awful in-house inner platforms that work like shit but you're forced to use it because otherwise some senior vice president would have to admit he made a bad decision 9 years ago. The companies who try hardest to protect their trade secrets are exactly those companies with the dumbest secrets. There's absolutely no risk to the company that their employees will take their competitive advantage to some competitor "across the street". What actually happens is that the company uses this as a prison fence to keep their employees from being able to leave when they treat them like shit. > If a company is paying you, they own what you create on company time and company equipment You're misrepresenting what those clauses say. Those clauses actually say "literally anything you ever do from the time of signing this document until the time you quit, we own, if we want it." If you draw an idea for a new fusion reactor on the back of a napkin late one night in a bar, your company now owns all rights to that design, and you are never allowed to do anything with it, ever. Yes, that's what they say. Yes, they're bullshit. That's why everyone hates them.

gnicholas 4y ago

The WFH analysis seemed incorrect to me also, as a former lawyer. It seems like the advice is geared toward a potential employee, not a potential contractor. If you're a contractor, it's not true that > If you work for a software hub, any SaaS app you build over the weekend will belong to the company, regardless of whether you do it with company property or not — as it's related to the company's business. Also, I'm not sure what to make of this claim: > Belonging to the company means everything, not just the IP — the revenue, the code, and the good vibes. Isn't this assumed, for both employment and contracting? If you're writing code for someone, then yes they own the code, the associated IP, the revenue they're going to generate with it, and the "good vibes". Which one of these things would an employee or contractor think he's entitled to?