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Ask HN: What's everyone's obsession with NDA's?
What's everyone's obsession with NDA's? As a freelance developer I am constantly running into people who absolutely insist that I must sign an NDA before we can either discuss their project.
My questions:
-Do you all run into this a lot?
-What do you say?
-Do you flat out refuse to sign and refuse to back down like me?
I think NDA's are arbitrary and unnecessary and I'm of the mind that if the person is so caught up on this they probably aren't worth working with.
- paulsutter 15y agoI used to get nervous about NDAs. My programmer's mind was always coming up with arcane problem cases. In practice NDAs are treated pretty simply - when you're under NDA with someone you dont talk about their stuff. My suggestion: find/develop a lightweight NDA that you _are_ willing to sign, rather than fighting a battle all the time. NDA's can range from impossibly restrictive to nearly inert with a few small wording changes. If someone insists on a weirdly restrictive NDA, they're probably a dick to work with anyway. Nobody goes back to look up the wording in the NDA. They just store a single bit in their mind, "under NDA". And rightly or wrongly, that bit is pretty important to many people.
- kylelibra 15y agoThat's a good idea for a compromise in this situation. Do you have a sample NDA that you could share?
- paulsutter 15y agoIf you like I can talk you through the major items that I look at when reviewing an NDA. My email address is in my profile.