This is a big deal! Non-competes are a major factor in the finance sector. In tech circles, this mainly impacts HFT firms and prop shops employing software people.
There's a well-trodden path in NYC from HFT/Prop #1 -> Big Tech, for duration of a non-compete -> HFT/Prop #2, that can be shortened by one node.
Yes this is great but the way non-competes are enforced for many in the industry this won't have a huge impact because of the way deferred compensation is structured. Most people when they leave are bound to two separate forms of non-competes.
The first is what is being invalidated here, which is a contractual non-compete. The second is a non-compete clause that is a function of your deferred compensation. Here the firm pays a portion of your bonus into the fund that vests over time. Often times a condition of the vesting is that you can leave, but if you do anything competitive for a 1-2 year period following the end of employment with the firm, that deferred comp will be clawed back. For most people this is the most important. It is common for a new fund to offer the employee a make-whole agreement where they will transfer your marked to market deferred comp into the new fund knowing that your prior employer will zero out your deferred comp. This will now in theory allow employees to switch employers that are competitive and start immediately with zero downside as long as the new employer makes the employee's deferred comp whole.
Where this is the worst is for new entrepreneurs leaving these funds that want to start on their own. Even if their contractual NC is no longer valid, there is not a new employer to make their deferred comp whole. Also even in CA where NC's are in theory non-enforceable, I know multiple people whose new employers did not want to test the water with very litigious firms and had people sit out the full NC. Also what this does not address is non-association clauses which are just as restrictive and non-competitive.
Lastly NC structures in this industry change every year and vary significantly across firms so you can't paint with too broad of a brunsh. But all in all I love this change. There is a lot of passion and talent that is forced to sit idle because of NC's.
> The second is a non-compete clause that is a function of your deferred compensation.
Over the decades, I've learned that deferred compensation is such a double-edged sword that I no longer take it into consideration at all when I'm considering a job.
My primary compensation has to be satisfactory assuming I'll never get a dime beyond that. If I end up getting deferred income, gravy! But if I don't, I'm still fairly compensated -- so no loss.
This: <<the way deferred compensation is structured>>
A tiny fraction of the industry qualifies for "deferred compensation". I guess about 1-2%. It is wildly overstated in the media. A huge number of people work their entire career on Wall Street as software developers and are 100% cash comp. Even if "deferred comp", it is RSUs, not cash. And the RSUs are no strings attached -- no clawback -- because the average Joe Blow has no chance to commit any real financial crime from their seat.
Your analysis is not likely correct. The bill appears to be aimed quite generally at restrictive covenants, outlawing any contract restraining a covered individual's employment.
This would void any agreement predicating the terms and conditions of deferred compensation on employment restraints.
It would also likely defeat any gardening schemes since contracts could no longer prohibit a covered individual from practicing their profession.
(I am not an expert on NY Law and it is possible that I am wrong and this bill isn't really intended to cover finance or tech professionals making solid money.)
> Also even in CA where NC's are in theory non-enforceable, I know multiple people whose new employers did not want to test the water with very litigious firms and had people sit out the full NC.
It's a known effect that not working can take a physical toll on some people (i.e. the mortality effect of retirement - https://www.nber.org/bah/2018no1/mortality-effects-retiremen... ). I'm sure no one would ever do it, but I wonder if an employee would win if they sued both the old and new employer as co-conspirators to violate California's non-compete prohibition, citing the not-working health toll as their standing to sue.
i’ve never heard of the second form of non-compete. how would the former employer even know? how is that legal? any amount of compensation that is finalised upon leaving the company (e.g. RSUs) should be yours to own, period. that’s akin to saying they can legally demand your paycheques back because they didnt like the company you went to.
New York is also the financial hub of the country. Removing non-competes creates a culture where employees can readily jump ship from their companies and form their startups w/o recourse. Not sure if that Silicon Valley culture makes sense in the financial sector.
> There's a well-trodden path in NYC from HFT/Prop #1 -> Big Tech, for duration of a non-compete -> HFT/Prop #2, that can be shortened by one node.
I've seen some folks do HFT/Prop #1 -> HFT/Prop #2 in London/Singapore.
In finance though, don’t people usually get a cushy 6 month paid “gardening leave” when they switch? So I’m not sure how much non-competes help if employees are already being offered contracts and $$$ to not compete. This law won’t make “gardening leave” any cushier?
>In finance though, don’t people usually get a cushy 6 month paid “gardening leave” when they switch?
Getting paid your salary for a couple of months (three is more common than six, in my experience) when most of your earnings might typically be in bonuses is less cushy than you might think.
That sounds like it applies to a miniscule amount of workers, while many more workers are forced to sign non-competes but get no special treatment (or cash) from their employer for bearing that burden.
Finance uniquely has little in the way of IP protection. There are strong incentives to keep a former team member out of the market for a year if they have your secret sauce.
As I understand it, yes, but being <some long duration> "out of the game" is a large opportunity cost if your intent is to go right back into finance. So the gardening leave is often not the best decision, career-wise, unless you're planning to exit finance altogether.
IMO, it's healthier for the overall industry/market if talent can move more freely. As one example, it makes it much more challenging for toxic cultures to persist in their current form, if the Sword of Damocles (NCA) isn't hanging above the off-ramp.
Garden leave probably won't be a thing anymore. The main reason it existed was to prevent lawsuits related to non-competes and loss of income. Basically they didn't want the non-competes challenged.
Now that that doesn't matter, they may just not offer it at all.
Or it might go the other way, where they offer you a year of salary and bonus to keep you away from competitors.
It depends. I personally once saw an offer where 'gardening leave' was only included if the employer chose to let you go, i.e. not if you chose to leave. And it wasn't for 6 months, IIRC it was at least a year.
And of course it didn't included any bonus, which is typically the larger portion of total comp in these situations.
The point of gardening leave is that it is mandatory, not voluntary. People are not going to choose to put their career on pause when they could be working, even if you pay them.
The proposed law will ban mandatory non competes, even if they are paid.
Focusing narrowly on New York City (proper) and State -- ignoring New Jersey and Connecticut: For all software developers employed by (a) HFT/prop shop or (b) major ibanks (Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, BAML, etc.), what is the ratio? I guess it is (a) 1% vs (b) 99%.
I do not agree with this phrase: <<major factor in the finance sector>>
In reality, most software devs work under an ibank contract that looks like:
(a) x months of notice is required before leaving your job. The firm may optionally grant you gardening leave -- don't come to office, but we pay you, and you cannot take another job.
(b) You cannot hire away teammates for one year.
There are no rules about why type of firm you can work for after leaving. To me, this is not a traditional "non-compete" contract. Also, before anyone gets too jumpy on HN, this type of contract has existed on Wall Street for more than 15 years. It is tried and tested in the courts.
The rules may be different for managing directors, but they are (at max) 2-5% of the population.
I don't know if the finance sector would consider this a big problem, but if it turned out to be a big problem, wouldn't they just be able to bypass it by opening up specific offices in, say, NJ or CT? A ton of firms are already located in CT.
Not to take away from that but I feel like the cases of them being enforced against, like, hairdressers and sandwich shop employees who can by no stretch of the imagination be said to have valuable proprietary information (and aren't earning that much in the first place) is much more egregious.
What will actually happen is NY will become less attractive to HFT/Prop firms and people jumping in and out of these firms will see lower sign-on bonuses
> the second bill, S6748, would, among other things, prohibit employers from entering into or maintaining non-compete agreements with workers, absent a “good faith basis” to believe a non-compete agreement is enforceable.
There should be a more general law about this. Drafting any contract without a good faith belief that it's provisions would be valid if tested by a court should be illegal.
Companies have the good faith belief that employees would be so outgunned in a legal fight that most of the time they won't even challenge invalid clauses.
Hence the need for a law. Something along the lines of:
* Anyone who was given a contract with a provision that the drafter knew was unenforceable can sue.
* If they win, they get, punitive damages, actual damages, and lawyer's fees.
* It is not necessary to alledge any damages, or even that the provision in question was ever relevant.
Do this, and there will be law firms looking and advertising for clients. For cases as obvious as the typical non-compete the law would be so clear that lawyers would have no issue working on contingency.
Employers can drive up litigation costs all they want. Plenty of law firms can handle it, and are already used to it; and at thd end of the process, the employer would just pay the cost.
yes, because the average person is so outgunned[1] by corporate lawyers and their deep pockets which means they can risk it, the law is effectively whatever you can scare someone into believing.
[1]: it's absurd that "gunned" is even a thing, talk about a complete lack of justice when you think about it.
This needs to be passed in the remaining 49 states ASAP. When moving over to my current gig, my previous employer forced me to sit out for 6 months. Their agreement was so broad that it pertained to anywhere where there was phone or email in the world. Also applied to any customers, partners, or competitors so basically I couldn’t work in tech at all (since they are a major reseller and everybody procures something from them).
Are there a lot of issues with non-competes? I've def heard stories, but it's usually related to poaching scenarios where a contractor gets hired by the company that they are contracting with.
That said, I also know that multiple states basically have mechanisms to prevent a non-complete from preventing work. For example, if I'm a mechanic, a non-complete can't keep me from being a mechanic and making a living because a former employer claims that every repair shop is a competitor.
(disclosure: I submitted comments to the FTC advocating for their rule making against non competes; personal opinion: its important this is codified at both federal and state levels to inhibit rollbacks in the future based on SCOTUS decisions around executive branch authority, consider them lines of defense and policy ratchets)
The whole problem was due to the abuse towards “low skill” workers. Stuff like if you get a job at Subway, you can’t go and work at another deli shop within a certain radius of the former employer.
The point of this change is to protect these people, which is totally sensible
Non-competes are also problematic for highly-compensated tech workers. The phenomenon of NCA'ing low-compenation workers is also horrible, of course, but not the whole problem.
The reality was courts in NY generally would never enforce a non-compete for a Subway like case. Courts do weigh the "equivalent exchange" and what the non-compete is "protecting". They were more problematic in any other higher paying field.
The first proposed bill bans all non-competes while the second proposed bill basically codifies non-competes are legal only if there's "good-faith" aka equivalent exchange. Which usually means payoff or enormous salary.
This is what highly paid white collar workers on Hacker News like to parrot but it's sensationalist at best. Even in this article where the evidence points to low wage workers having the lowest percentage of NCA's runs with the click bait headline.
Regardless, no Subway worker ever GAF about a NCA. They walked right across the street to Jimmy John's and were hired on the spot. And even if Subway had a NCA in place - which I doubt most of the major chains do - Subway doesn't GAF either. The only time anyone would care is maybe if a manager opened another deli across the street and took all the info from their suppliers with them.
Easier to keep the employees around with the threat of legally enforced unemployment without the safety net than changing the business or working conditions or pay to something worth sticking around for.
There was a particularly high profile case of a high-level Microsoft engineer who left for Google, and Ballmer literally threw chairs across the room and had the guy sued.
Microsoft lost.
Nobody hears about these stories when they stakes are lower.
Never mind the issue of tech worker poaching and whatever secret agreements the companies made, the real issue here is Ballmer’s terrifying spasm of violence. He ought to have been removed from the building and barred from the property, and his employment terminated. That type of outburst is never ok because it forces everyone to wonder at what point he might assault someone.
I don’t care how many billions of dollars are at stake, none of it is worth getting hurt over, and throwing chairs around demonstrates that he has lost that perspective.
It's a tool for intimidating workers. Non-competes may make a worker afraid to leave a job for fear of being unable to work in their industry. It may also make a worker afraid to take specific positions for fear of retaliation by a former employer.
The key is, non-competes can accomplish these things even if they're not legally defensible. Your average worker doesn't have the legal knowledge to know if a given non-compete is actually likely to hold up, and will often assume that they signed a legally valid contract. Most workers can't afford to go to court, so the threat of a lawsuit can be used to bully them into submission.
In the financial industry there’s a norm that traders, and other high profile workers, will have gardening leave between jobs. The old company will pay the ex-employee for a few months to do nothing. This way when he starts at the new company and inside knowledge he gleaned is out of date. The new company knows that this is the deal and is okay with a start date after gardening leave.
This is the civilized version of a non-compete developed by New York Bankers. Oh so nice and caring California tech companies use the ruthless version. Since they now have offices in NY we need to change the law to force them to behave.
Some stores prevent retail workers going to work for a competing store. That's completely bananas - you can't work as a checkout clerk at Krogers if you worked at Safeway?
If a retail worker is key to your business such that it requires a non-complete, your business model is broken or you're abusing non-competes.
What would constitute "a lot"? The last few years I've seen an increase in the tech industry of non-competes being required for less senior roles, plus reports of using non-competes in low-wage industries to try to freeze workers from leaving jobs. [1]
They're also over-broad and selectively enforced. I was considering a job last year that had a non-compete and wasn't eager to sign it because if you read it broadly it would've been hard for me to take a job that wasn't with a "competitor." Which was 1) over-broad and 2) bogus because the harm that would've been done to me was far outsized to any harm I could've done taking a job with any competitor.
I wasn't going to be such a strategic employee that me going to Company B would have hurt Company A in any real way (nor would I have been compensated at that level...), but I was expected to sign a non-compete and be severely restricted in my next job options -- or roll the dice and hope if I took a job with Company B later on that it wouldn't be considered "a competitor" or that the employer would care.
And that's the other problem - I was told by several people "eh, that's not enforced" but it was not something they were willing to forego, either. I don't sign agreements with the intent I'm not going to live up to them. It's not reasonable to have that kind of uncertainty, either.
Non-competes have their place - I can see, say, Netflix putting in place a NC with a head of programming or major cloud providers having non-competes for very senior execs who have extensive information about strategy, budget, customer lists, etc. But lower-rung employees who don't even have their own budget or any material knowledge about the operations of the business? That's stupid.
I've had to sign many of them. The only one that would have definitely been enforced was not tech-related and very narrow in scope (don't open competition within 10 miles).
But every tech-related one amounted to, "you're not allowed to work if you sign this". I didn't have any "issues" with them, in the sense that nobody ever tried to enforce one, but it's still a load of BS that we shouldn't need to deal with.
Non-compete agreements for employees are a farce, IMHO.
Cases where companies actually take someone to court are almost certainly not very common and tend to involve high-level people (or employers with a real grudge).
But having worked for a very small company for a number of years, we wouldn't touch anyone with a remotely relevant non-compete. As far as our business office was concerned, no one was basically worth any risk of litigation and legal bills.
That said, I have known companies that were apparently known for enforcing non-competes and departing employees who wanted to put out their own shingle for competing services would sit "on the beach" for a year before doing so.
The most common use of noncompetes is just to discourage an employee from quitting their job. "Oh, you want to go for for unrelated firm X? Actually, legal says they're a competitor, because we're a huge conglomerate. So, you can't take that job. Sorry."
In this situation, the company doesn't actually care about the competition at all. The noncompete is just another tool in their toolbox to discourage you from quitting.
> Are there a lot of issues with non-competes? I've def heard stories, but it's usually related to poaching scenarios where a contractor gets hired by the company that they are contracting with.
There's no issue unless the state is into stifling innovation. Want to create a Silicon Valley? You have to allow for employees to jump ship and form startups w/o repercussion.
FWIW, to add to the joy, non-competes have been officially banned in Ontario since Oct 25, 2021 (but rejected by the courts for a long time before that. I suspect they're not enforceable in other provinces; but officially not allowed in Ontario.)
So that means for all employees in the greater Toronto area. (And Toronto is 4th biggest city in North America just after Chicago).
The textbook I read to study for my provincial Engineering Law and Ethics exam had a section on non-competes. It straight up said the vast majority of non-competes are not enforceable but warned that the more specific the circumstances described by the non-compete the greater the chance that a court would enforce it.
The example they used for something that would most likely be enforced was a geologist working for company A doing a mining survey in a area under a 6 month non-compete cause would definitely not legally be allowed to take a job for company B to do a survey in the same area until the non-compete expired.
Most non-competes are banned in the third largest city in North America too. Seems like with NYC on board most major employment centers will be covered.
It's not entirely clear what happens if a company is NOT located in NY, yet hires a person remotely and that person lives in the state of NY. Does this law apply for as long as 1 entity in the relationship (ie, employer vs employee) is located in NY, or is the statute invalidated completely if both parties are not in NY?
you can follow the laws of the state you physically work in, and no employer in a different state can do anything to you regarding a different state's law
It is crazy how much stuff Hochul gets away with. And she gets all this credit as a super progressive, pro consumer governor... She is somehow scandal free. Republicans in NY really messed up by nominating a DeSantis style politician in NY. They passed up a massive opportunity for a republican governor since so many dems didn't like Hochul.
Would a Republican pass any right to repair bill? A watered down bill is better than nothing. So it's weird that you would suggest a Republican would be better for this issue.
I guess my country regulates this pretty well - employer is forced to pay at least half of the salary for the duration of non-compete and on top of that the onus is on the employer to prove that an ex-employee is engaging in "direct competition" if they are going to sue for damages. Which, I tend to believe, captures the purpose of non-compete agreements quite well.
Readit News
There's a well-trodden path in NYC from HFT/Prop #1 -> Big Tech, for duration of a non-compete -> HFT/Prop #2, that can be shortened by one node.
The first is what is being invalidated here, which is a contractual non-compete. The second is a non-compete clause that is a function of your deferred compensation. Here the firm pays a portion of your bonus into the fund that vests over time. Often times a condition of the vesting is that you can leave, but if you do anything competitive for a 1-2 year period following the end of employment with the firm, that deferred comp will be clawed back. For most people this is the most important. It is common for a new fund to offer the employee a make-whole agreement where they will transfer your marked to market deferred comp into the new fund knowing that your prior employer will zero out your deferred comp. This will now in theory allow employees to switch employers that are competitive and start immediately with zero downside as long as the new employer makes the employee's deferred comp whole.
Where this is the worst is for new entrepreneurs leaving these funds that want to start on their own. Even if their contractual NC is no longer valid, there is not a new employer to make their deferred comp whole. Also even in CA where NC's are in theory non-enforceable, I know multiple people whose new employers did not want to test the water with very litigious firms and had people sit out the full NC. Also what this does not address is non-association clauses which are just as restrictive and non-competitive.
Lastly NC structures in this industry change every year and vary significantly across firms so you can't paint with too broad of a brunsh. But all in all I love this change. There is a lot of passion and talent that is forced to sit idle because of NC's.
Over the decades, I've learned that deferred compensation is such a double-edged sword that I no longer take it into consideration at all when I'm considering a job.
My primary compensation has to be satisfactory assuming I'll never get a dime beyond that. If I end up getting deferred income, gravy! But if I don't, I'm still fairly compensated -- so no loss.
A tiny fraction of the industry qualifies for "deferred compensation". I guess about 1-2%. It is wildly overstated in the media. A huge number of people work their entire career on Wall Street as software developers and are 100% cash comp. Even if "deferred comp", it is RSUs, not cash. And the RSUs are no strings attached -- no clawback -- because the average Joe Blow has no chance to commit any real financial crime from their seat.
I've never heard of a non-association clause, could you explain it? Is this the same as a non-solicitation clause?
This would void any agreement predicating the terms and conditions of deferred compensation on employment restraints.
It would also likely defeat any gardening schemes since contracts could no longer prohibit a covered individual from practicing their profession.
(I am not an expert on NY Law and it is possible that I am wrong and this bill isn't really intended to cover finance or tech professionals making solid money.)
It's a known effect that not working can take a physical toll on some people (i.e. the mortality effect of retirement - https://www.nber.org/bah/2018no1/mortality-effects-retiremen... ). I'm sure no one would ever do it, but I wonder if an employee would win if they sued both the old and new employer as co-conspirators to violate California's non-compete prohibition, citing the not-working health toll as their standing to sue.
totally insane— america needs more labour rights.
> There's a well-trodden path in NYC from HFT/Prop #1 -> Big Tech, for duration of a non-compete -> HFT/Prop #2, that can be shortened by one node.
I've seen some folks do HFT/Prop #1 -> HFT/Prop #2 in London/Singapore.
Getting paid your salary for a couple of months (three is more common than six, in my experience) when most of your earnings might typically be in bonuses is less cushy than you might think.
IMO, it's healthier for the overall industry/market if talent can move more freely. As one example, it makes it much more challenging for toxic cultures to persist in their current form, if the Sword of Damocles (NCA) isn't hanging above the off-ramp.
Now that that doesn't matter, they may just not offer it at all.
Or it might go the other way, where they offer you a year of salary and bonus to keep you away from competitors.
And of course it didn't included any bonus, which is typically the larger portion of total comp in these situations.
The proposed law will ban mandatory non competes, even if they are paid.
Now you've a 18 month notice period. You're paid salary, bonus etc.
I do not agree with this phrase: <<major factor in the finance sector>>
In reality, most software devs work under an ibank contract that looks like:
(a) x months of notice is required before leaving your job. The firm may optionally grant you gardening leave -- don't come to office, but we pay you, and you cannot take another job.
(b) You cannot hire away teammates for one year.
There are no rules about why type of firm you can work for after leaving. To me, this is not a traditional "non-compete" contract. Also, before anyone gets too jumpy on HN, this type of contract has existed on Wall Street for more than 15 years. It is tried and tested in the courts.
The rules may be different for managing directors, but they are (at max) 2-5% of the population.
There should be a more general law about this. Drafting any contract without a good faith belief that it's provisions would be valid if tested by a court should be illegal.
* Anyone who was given a contract with a provision that the drafter knew was unenforceable can sue. * If they win, they get, punitive damages, actual damages, and lawyer's fees. * It is not necessary to alledge any damages, or even that the provision in question was ever relevant.
Do this, and there will be law firms looking and advertising for clients. For cases as obvious as the typical non-compete the law would be so clear that lawyers would have no issue working on contingency.
Employers can drive up litigation costs all they want. Plenty of law firms can handle it, and are already used to it; and at thd end of the process, the employer would just pay the cost.
[1]: it's absurd that "gunned" is even a thing, talk about a complete lack of justice when you think about it.
Hint: Their company color is fuchsia
Surely a clause that broad must have been unenforceable in at least _some_ jurisdictions?
That said, I also know that multiple states basically have mechanisms to prevent a non-complete from preventing work. For example, if I'm a mechanic, a non-complete can't keep me from being a mechanic and making a living because a former employer claims that every repair shop is a competitor.
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/federal-register-no...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/01/...
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/01/...
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/upshot/when-the-guy-making... | https://archive.is/I8wmH
Previous on the topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34260577
(disclosure: I submitted comments to the FTC advocating for their rule making against non competes; personal opinion: its important this is codified at both federal and state levels to inhibit rollbacks in the future based on SCOTUS decisions around executive branch authority, consider them lines of defense and policy ratchets)
The point of this change is to protect these people, which is totally sensible
The first proposed bill bans all non-competes while the second proposed bill basically codifies non-competes are legal only if there's "good-faith" aka equivalent exchange. Which usually means payoff or enormous salary.
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2021/non-compete-cont...
Regardless, no Subway worker ever GAF about a NCA. They walked right across the street to Jimmy John's and were hired on the spot. And even if Subway had a NCA in place - which I doubt most of the major chains do - Subway doesn't GAF either. The only time anyone would care is maybe if a manager opened another deli across the street and took all the info from their suppliers with them.
Microsoft lost.
Nobody hears about these stories when they stakes are lower.
I don’t care how many billions of dollars are at stake, none of it is worth getting hurt over, and throwing chairs around demonstrates that he has lost that perspective.
Deleted Comment
The key is, non-competes can accomplish these things even if they're not legally defensible. Your average worker doesn't have the legal knowledge to know if a given non-compete is actually likely to hold up, and will often assume that they signed a legally valid contract. Most workers can't afford to go to court, so the threat of a lawsuit can be used to bully them into submission.
This is the civilized version of a non-compete developed by New York Bankers. Oh so nice and caring California tech companies use the ruthless version. Since they now have offices in NY we need to change the law to force them to behave.
If a retail worker is key to your business such that it requires a non-complete, your business model is broken or you're abusing non-competes.
What would constitute "a lot"? The last few years I've seen an increase in the tech industry of non-competes being required for less senior roles, plus reports of using non-competes in low-wage industries to try to freeze workers from leaving jobs. [1]
They're also over-broad and selectively enforced. I was considering a job last year that had a non-compete and wasn't eager to sign it because if you read it broadly it would've been hard for me to take a job that wasn't with a "competitor." Which was 1) over-broad and 2) bogus because the harm that would've been done to me was far outsized to any harm I could've done taking a job with any competitor.
I wasn't going to be such a strategic employee that me going to Company B would have hurt Company A in any real way (nor would I have been compensated at that level...), but I was expected to sign a non-compete and be severely restricted in my next job options -- or roll the dice and hope if I took a job with Company B later on that it wouldn't be considered "a competitor" or that the employer would care.
And that's the other problem - I was told by several people "eh, that's not enforced" but it was not something they were willing to forego, either. I don't sign agreements with the intent I'm not going to live up to them. It's not reasonable to have that kind of uncertainty, either.
Non-competes have their place - I can see, say, Netflix putting in place a NC with a head of programming or major cloud providers having non-competes for very senior execs who have extensive information about strategy, budget, customer lists, etc. But lower-rung employees who don't even have their own budget or any material knowledge about the operations of the business? That's stupid.
[1] https://www.mashed.com/620419/the-contract-you-didnt-realize...
But every tech-related one amounted to, "you're not allowed to work if you sign this". I didn't have any "issues" with them, in the sense that nobody ever tried to enforce one, but it's still a load of BS that we shouldn't need to deal with.
Non-compete agreements for employees are a farce, IMHO.
But having worked for a very small company for a number of years, we wouldn't touch anyone with a remotely relevant non-compete. As far as our business office was concerned, no one was basically worth any risk of litigation and legal bills.
That said, I have known companies that were apparently known for enforcing non-competes and departing employees who wanted to put out their own shingle for competing services would sit "on the beach" for a year before doing so.
In this situation, the company doesn't actually care about the competition at all. The noncompete is just another tool in their toolbox to discourage you from quitting.
There's no issue unless the state is into stifling innovation. Want to create a Silicon Valley? You have to allow for employees to jump ship and form startups w/o repercussion.
You cannot interview with their competitor even if they reject you? Absurd!
Dead Comment
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/massachusetts-law-about-no...
> Bill No. S3100A, proposes a ban on all non-compete agreements,
So that means for all employees in the greater Toronto area. (And Toronto is 4th biggest city in North America just after Chicago).
The example they used for something that would most likely be enforced was a geologist working for company A doing a mining survey in a area under a 6 month non-compete cause would definitely not legally be allowed to take a job for company B to do a survey in the same area until the non-compete expired.
I was an employee and live and work in Minnesota. The policy did not apply to me : (