5 ms·

Surely some CEO here, or someone who has worked in HR can illuminate us on how they believe this is true. I once caught a company I worked for in the lie about

by tibbon 4y ago

Surely some CEO here, or someone who has worked in HR can illuminate us on how they believe this is true. I once caught a company I worked for in the lie about this. I was advocating for a new employee who didn't want to sign the no-compete clause. They say they needed it. I asked what problems they had in California, and how it was impacting their business - they replied there were no problems. So I was like, "Ok, so if it isn't impacting you in CA, why do you think it will impact elsewhere?" In the end, they did hire that person, and did not make them sign the non-compete.

ryandrake 4y ago
Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. There is no financial incentive for them to say "We don't need noncompetes" or even "You know, it really doesn't affect our bottom line either way." So instead they will always say "Of course we need it." There's no downside.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. I think this makes companies seem much more rational than they actually are. Plenty of companies do things because other players (especially larger players) in the space do it, regardless of cost/benefit to themselves. Where do you think the phrase "no one got fired for buying IBM" comes from?
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    If you've been around high-level exec's or their lawyers much - there's a whole lotta "what is the maximum amount of sh*t that we could get away with, or at least might benefit from attempting?" going on.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      "What is going to get that stock price higher?" aka what'll trigger my next level bonus package
- danaris 4y ago
  > Companies don't "believe" things. This is technically correct. (The best kind of correct, right?) > They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. This is not (at least, not as universally as you state it). Companies are legal fictions; they do not act on their own. People act. People talk. People believe things. People often amorally advocate for whatever they believe will be most favorable for their employer, or for themselves. People are often wrong. As companies are made up of many people, those people's beliefs and actions don't always match up, so it's still dangerous to talk too carelessly about a given company "believing" any particular thing without qualifiers. Any time someone talks about a company "doing something", they obviously mean that the people within the company did those things, and those people's actions are guided by their individual and collective beliefs. They do not suddenly become perfect automata operating solely for the best interests of the company, without bias of their own, and they certainly don't suddenly become perfectly able to determine what will best serve the interests of the company.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Companies don't "believe" things. The people in charge of them cargo-cult like a motherfucker, though.
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  Right, exactly. When Walgreens says "Walgreens feels very strongly that labor unions do not serve the best interests of our individual employees or the company as a whole," they are lying. Walgreens is not a person. It does not feel anything. You might apply this to their leadership instead, but it's also understood that Walgreen's leadership is also lying. They are quite aware that a labor union would better serve their individual employees. It's just culturally accepted that corporations can nakedly lie about this sort of stuff and it doesn't matter. What a company says "We prefer thing X," everything they say after that is just the autocomplete of ChatGPT with a prompt "make up reasons why X is good." They're not their actual justifications. Their actual justifications are usually readily apparent, but it's comes across better to just make inane statements than to speak the truth. Political interviews have the same problem. You ask the politician a significant question with a yes/no answer. The politician says "this is important" and then makes noises for 20 seconds. The noises don't matter. They don't say anything. What they're actually doing is declining to answer, but culturally it's acceptable to do it this way, and it's unclear why.
garbagecoder 4y ago
OK, I can try and steel man it for you. Warning, long. California hasn't had noncompetes for a long time (B&P 16600). But if you look in the code right around there, there are a few carveouts that cover most of the situations that are used most of the time for legitimate cases, like the split up of a closely held company. There are other extreme examples that use a slightly different legal theory, like professional athlete contracts, which also rely on the forbearance of the other teams from employing the person in that specific role, though if Lebron wanted to pour beers for the Knicks, I'm doubtful that's covered. (Back when they were the worst team in existence, I did some work for the Warriors.) The real reason they're haven't been so many issues in California is because they make you sign all kinds of things about IP, trade secrets, and so on which they will always start with if they really want to block a move. The courts know the score, they know this is just non-compete by other means, but if you cover your bases, it usually works (i.e. move is ok). Your new employer knows the score too and will usually just work a deal or fight the case. But if the cost gets too high, or maybe you kept an email print out you shouldn't have, it can get gnarly/expensive. And even just that drag/delay is enough of a deterrent. So what's left? An employee who leaves with no critical information who just wants to open a competitor near by? There are a few circumstances like this where it might matter. Small company, key employee leaves, he has no IP, but it will probably impact your business. So what do you do? Realistically, you probably engage in guerrilla tactics. And this brings me to my steel man. How much of the oblique, bank-shot BS litigation (the guerrilla tactics I mentioned) about "trade secrets" is really just back door non-compete? That's your cost. Your benefit is free movement of employees, which means employees have more leverage in a freer market for labor and employers have to run their business well and can't just collect rents on their non-protectable intangibles, like being the only iPhone repair shop in town. If you had a fair, reasonable standard for non-competes that had statutory limits and were void otherwise and that had to be supported by separate consideration, sort of like how we're trying to do employment arbitrations here, then I might be interested whether this cancels out the BS trade-secret litigation is enough of a benefit to outweigh the cost. Of course, I doubt it. I've been involved with this stuff for decades and it's never perfect, and I understand that other states might want to be careful about adopting California stuff, but this statute is so old that it's from when Earl Warren was governor. No one will miss these much. But I think the next question is how to tone down these BS trade secret cases too. Employers do have legitimate concerns in their IP, but those are protected other ways. Maybe they don't believe that can be done easily. Or maybe it's in your brain and you can't unforget. Well, then the solution is in the IP universe, not in keeping competition out. tl;dr best argument is that it's the only practical way to protect IP, but this can be addressed other ways both legal (contracts, lawsuits) and nonlegal (cybersecurity), which is exactly what people in CA have done sometimes too much.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> some CEO here, or someone who has worked in HR can illuminate us on how they believe this is true I'm trying to think of a case where I want to hire someone, HR says I need a non-compete, the candidate won't sign one, and I don't push back against HR. I'm coming up empty. That said, if a colleague wanted to hire someone, I was iffy on them and saw a string of short employment stints, I might press for a gardening leave or tighter NDA regarding client lists and IP.

by tibbon 4y ago

ryandrake 4y ago

Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. There is no financial incentive for them to say "We don't need noncompetes" or even "You know, it really doesn't affect our bottom line either way." So instead they will always say "Of course we need it." There's no downside.

AlexandrB 4y ago
> Companies don't "believe" things. They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. I think this makes companies seem much more rational than they actually are. Plenty of companies do things because other players (especially larger players) in the space do it, regardless of cost/benefit to themselves. Where do you think the phrase "no one got fired for buying IBM" comes from?
- bell-cot 4y ago
  If you've been around high-level exec's or their lawyers much - there's a whole lotta "what is the maximum amount of sh*t that we could get away with, or at least might benefit from attempting?" going on.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    "What is going to get that stock price higher?" aka what'll trigger my next level bonus package
danaris 4y ago
> Companies don't "believe" things. This is technically correct. (The best kind of correct, right?) > They will amorally advocate for whatever is remotely favorable to the company. This is not (at least, not as universally as you state it). Companies are legal fictions; they do not act on their own. People act. People talk. People believe things. People often amorally advocate for whatever they believe will be most favorable for their employer, or for themselves. People are often wrong. As companies are made up of many people, those people's beliefs and actions don't always match up, so it's still dangerous to talk too carelessly about a given company "believing" any particular thing without qualifiers. Any time someone talks about a company "doing something", they obviously mean that the people within the company did those things, and those people's actions are guided by their individual and collective beliefs. They do not suddenly become perfect automata operating solely for the best interests of the company, without bias of their own, and they certainly don't suddenly become perfectly able to determine what will best serve the interests of the company.
yamtaddle 4y ago
> Companies don't "believe" things. The people in charge of them cargo-cult like a motherfucker, though.
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
Right, exactly. When Walgreens says "Walgreens feels very strongly that labor unions do not serve the best interests of our individual employees or the company as a whole," they are lying. Walgreens is not a person. It does not feel anything. You might apply this to their leadership instead, but it's also understood that Walgreen's leadership is also lying. They are quite aware that a labor union would better serve their individual employees. It's just culturally accepted that corporations can nakedly lie about this sort of stuff and it doesn't matter. What a company says "We prefer thing X," everything they say after that is just the autocomplete of ChatGPT with a prompt "make up reasons why X is good." They're not their actual justifications. Their actual justifications are usually readily apparent, but it's comes across better to just make inane statements than to speak the truth. Political interviews have the same problem. You ask the politician a significant question with a yes/no answer. The politician says "this is important" and then makes noises for 20 seconds. The noises don't matter. They don't say anything. What they're actually doing is declining to answer, but culturally it's acceptable to do it this way, and it's unclear why.

garbagecoder 4y ago

OK, I can try and steel man it for you. Warning, long. California hasn't had noncompetes for a long time (B&P 16600). But if you look in the code right around there, there are a few carveouts that cover most of the situations that are used most of the time for legitimate cases, like the split up of a closely held company. There are other extreme examples that use a slightly different legal theory, like professional athlete contracts, which also rely on the forbearance of the other teams from employing the person in that specific role, though if Lebron wanted to pour beers for the Knicks, I'm doubtful that's covered. (Back when they were the worst team in existence, I did some work for the Warriors.) The real reason they're haven't been so many issues in California is because they make you sign all kinds of things about IP, trade secrets, and so on which they will always start with if they really want to block a move. The courts know the score, they know this is just non-compete by other means, but if you cover your bases, it usually works (i.e. move is ok). Your new employer knows the score too and will usually just work a deal or fight the case. But if the cost gets too high, or maybe you kept an email print out you shouldn't have, it can get gnarly/expensive. And even just that drag/delay is enough of a deterrent. So what's left? An employee who leaves with no critical information who just wants to open a competitor near by? There are a few circumstances like this where it might matter. Small company, key employee leaves, he has no IP, but it will probably impact your business. So what do you do? Realistically, you probably engage in guerrilla tactics. And this brings me to my steel man. How much of the oblique, bank-shot BS litigation (the guerrilla tactics I mentioned) about "trade secrets" is really just back door non-compete? That's your cost. Your benefit is free movement of employees, which means employees have more leverage in a freer market for labor and employers have to run their business well and can't just collect rents on their non-protectable intangibles, like being the only iPhone repair shop in town. If you had a fair, reasonable standard for non-competes that had statutory limits and were void otherwise and that had to be supported by separate consideration, sort of like how we're trying to do employment arbitrations here, then I might be interested whether this cancels out the BS trade-secret litigation is enough of a benefit to outweigh the cost. Of course, I doubt it. I've been involved with this stuff for decades and it's never perfect, and I understand that other states might want to be careful about adopting California stuff, but this statute is so old that it's from when Earl Warren was governor. No one will miss these much. But I think the next question is how to tone down these BS trade secret cases too. Employers do have legitimate concerns in their IP, but those are protected other ways. Maybe they don't believe that can be done easily. Or maybe it's in your brain and you can't unforget. Well, then the solution is in the IP universe, not in keeping competition out. tl;dr best argument is that it's the only practical way to protect IP, but this can be addressed other ways both legal (contracts, lawsuits) and nonlegal (cybersecurity), which is exactly what people in CA have done sometimes too much.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> some CEO here, or someone who has worked in HR can illuminate us on how they believe this is true I'm trying to think of a case where I want to hire someone, HR says I need a non-compete, the candidate won't sign one, and I don't push back against HR. I'm coming up empty. That said, if a colleague wanted to hire someone, I was iffy on them and saw a string of short employment stints, I might press for a gardening leave or tighter NDA regarding client lists and IP.