Amazon sues former AWS VP over non-compete deal

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-sues-former-aws-vp-non-compete-deal-smartsheet-calls-claim-new-product-chief-enormous-overreach/amp/

by mindhash • 9 years ago

212 155 9 years ago

geekwire.com

coredog64• 9 years ago

How does Washington state still allow non-compete agreements?

solomatov• 9 years ago

IANAL. Almost all states allow them. Even in California, in limited circumstances they are allowed.

dctoedt• 9 years ago

Even in California, in limited circumstances they [noncompetes] are allowed.

The circumstances are extremely limited [0]. In fact, California law says it's an unfair business practice even to require an employee to sign a noncompete, which could result in civil liability for damages [1].

[0] See, e.g., https://www.venable.com/enforcing-non-compete-provisions-in-...

[1] See, e.g., https://www.dorsey.com/newsresources/publications/2012/07/no...

bla2• 9 years ago

Certainly makes Amazon a less desirable employer for me.

jnwatson• 9 years ago

Exactly. I had genuinely considered working there. Cancel that idea.

lovelle• 9 years ago

me too.

walshemj2• 9 years ago

Makes working in states that allow NC less desirable - maybe the VC/PE industry needs to not invest in states that have NC laws.

Or just set up companies such you are employed by company in CA.

legohead2• 9 years ago

Just let them know up front you wont sign any non-competes.

khazhoux2• 9 years ago

Companies with hundreds of new-hires every week, don't customize their contracts.

cafard• 9 years ago

Very odd.

Jach4• 9 years ago

Amazon does this shit all the time.

TSiege• 9 years ago

(Pipe)Dream scenario this gets challenged and ends up in the supreme court and non-competes as a practice are ended completely.

harryh2• 9 years ago

On what Constitutional grounds could the Supreme Court possibly support such a ruling?

twobyfour• 9 years ago

Perhaps that it constitutes a form of slavery? Yeah, a bit of a stretch.

falcolas2• 9 years ago

On the same grounds that states like California outlaw such agreements?

In reality, though, they would probably not take such a case and simply let the lower court's ruling stand.

walshemj2• 9 years ago

Interference in interstate commerce and arguably on human rights grounds Article 13 and 23 for example.

Spooky23• 9 years ago

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3. The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

If developers and fast food workers alike feel compelled to move to California to escape the yoke of constricting and onerous non-compete agreements, there's an argument to be made that it's a meaningful impact to interstate commerce.

Twirrim4• 9 years ago

Amazon's non-compete is overly broad and sweeping, and arguably stops anyone from going to a company that even uses cloud technologies. It's written in a way that allows the court to decide just how far it can actually be applied.

As you'll notice from the article, Amazon seems to try to enforce the non-compete every few years, I'm guessing mostly as a message to existing Amazon employees. All I've every seen it do is piss off their employees.

That said, it's totally possible to leave Amazon and move on to an actual competitor. You just have to get lawyers involved. Oracle's Bare Metal Cloud org, that I work for, is made up of roughly 75% ex-aws staff (Amazon has been hemorrhaging staff to Oracle because better pay, and way better working conditions) Lawyers on both sides end up negotiating back and forth and you just end up not working on anything related to what you were working on for AWS.

leggomylibro3• 9 years ago

Absolutely - I cannot emphasize enough how damaging these policies are to the organization. Not only does the noncompete piss off existing employees and stifle creativity, it turns off the better class of potential hires. People absolutely decline to sign these, and hiring is hard enough as is.

And they don't even win when they bring it up in court; iirc, last time they tried this they wound up having to pay a full salary for the time that they wanted to prevent the ex-employee from working.

I don't like to generalize, but business lawyers are soulless asshats.

1024core• 9 years ago

it turns off the better class of potential hires

Definitely. Hearing such stories, even if Amazon came calling tomorrow to recruit me, I'd stay away. No one wants their former employer holding a veto over future employment.

smokey_the_bear• 9 years ago

My four year old's soccer coach was leaving his organization, and I asked him if he was interested in doing private lessons in my neighborhood. He said he was, but he'd signed a non compete with the local children's soccer organization.

It demolished my opinion of the soccer group that they are making 22 year olds sign non competes.

(I did tell him the non-compete was void in California, but he still didn't want to deal with it)

BrandoElFollito• 9 years ago

Having to pay someone during the time of a non-compete is normal practice in France. The law states that if they're is a non-compete and payment details during this time are not part of the contract then that part is void and not enforceable. A company may decide not to enforce a non-compete (when resigning) and therefore not to pay, but it has to be done right when someone quits, not afterwards.

epistasis• 9 years ago

(Amazon has been hemorrhaging staff to Oracle because better pay, and way better working conditions)

I may not be totally tuned into Oracle's reputation, but this seems incredibly damning to Amazon.

Twirrim4• 9 years ago

I may not be totally tuned into Oracle's reputation, but this seems incredibly damning to Amazon.

I can't speak to the rest of Oracle, my only experience is from here in the bare metal cloud org, but it's:

1) Better pay.

2) Better hours (you don't keep having to work ridiculous hours to keep afloat.) In over a year I've done barely a dozen late nights, and at least half of those were totally unavoidable. In every case management has strenuously forced me to recoup my time. One thing I really hated was watching staff just constantly burn out in various teams across AWS (I was lucky, my team in AWS was actually one of the good ones.)

3) An obsession with the operational burden (easier to operate == more resilient platform, happier staff and happier customers).

4) Middle management who actively push back, and a senior management tier who both listen, and juggle staff around as appropriate to ensure things get done on time. AWS is a constant feature mill, and it comes across in the marketing language etc. This is only fuelled because middle managers right across the org are either unwilling to say no, or have no authority to do so. From the differences I've seen with managers there, it really seems like the former. Some managers really do make a huge difference (and indeed, the only reason I entertained the possibility of joining Oracle was because I knew several good managers who'd moved across)

praneshp2• 9 years ago

I was interviewing for that team when I left Yahoo in March 2016, and it was a great fit because I was working on Yahoo (and Openstack) baremetal cloud. My friend there said that Oracle will start you off at whatever salary makes you switch, and then give you 0 hikes.

My Oracle recruiter's tone made me believe this even more. So take OP (and my) anecdote with some salt.

trhway• 9 years ago

>(Amazon has been hemorrhaging staff to Oracle because better pay, and way better working conditions)
I may not be totally tuned into Oracle's reputation, but this seems incredibly damning to Amazon.

"bare metal" is a very special high-priority org in Oracle, pretty different from the rest of the company. Potemkin ... err ... Elison's cloud village.

metaphorm• 9 years ago

how successful has Amazon been, historically, in enforcing these clauses?

I've had Amazon recruiters trying to bring me in for an interview for several years now but keep avoiding it because of their reputation for sledgehammer management style. Am I on target here or is this unfounded?

vkou4• 9 years ago

They don't have to be successful at enforcing them. The threat of a potential lawsuit scares employees, and - more importantly - scares their competitors from hiring Amazon employees.

If you were an employer, and you had two candidates - one from Amazon, bound by a mountain of non-competes, and one from Google, who isn't - which would you choose?

Maybe the Amazon person is a bit better, but they also come with the possibility of six figures in legal fees.

leggomylibro3• 9 years ago

Not very. They typically either lose, lose so badly that they are forced to rewrite their contracts, or claim victory after being forced to pay the employee for the time they'd be prevented from working.

The problem is, if you're an individual, it's a huge pain in the ass to duke this sort of thing out. You might even get unlucky in a cut-and-dry case, simply by virtue of not having much money to spend on it.

ivanstojic2• 9 years ago

Another 4 year ex Amazonian here who moved to OBMC. Totally standing by everything Twirrim said.

wand3r2• 9 years ago

Not that 2 anecdotes is enough; but between both and the media it really sounds as if AMZN is internally terrible.

wyc• 9 years ago

    “When we looked at their offerings and what Smartsheet does, it is two
    totally different worlds,” said Mader. Using Amazon’s logic, Mader said
    that Smartsheet would be a viewed as a competitor to Amazon Prime because
    both services make people more productive.

If this interpretation is correct (take with salt as it comes from the defendant's side), then it sounds like an attempt to debar this person from working on any technology at all.

phonon4• 9 years ago

If you look at the complaint, it suggests Amazon (and the person being sued) has been working on a similar collaboration product of some type, presumably as part of their "Business Productivity" unit; Workmail/Workdocs/Workspaces/Chime.

"AWS currently offers numerous cloud-based productivity products for businesses—i.e., products designed to streamline work processes—including products for corporate email and calendaring, document storage and collaboration, virtual meetings, video calls, and chats, and virtual desktops. AWS’s product offerings are in constant development....AWS competes with Smartsheet (Amazon will submit to the court more detailed information regarding these efforts, under seal, and attorneys eyes only, at the appropriate time)....Shortly before he left AWS, he worked on a critical component of [REDACTED] and received extensive confidential information about how [REDACTED]."

kudokatz• 9 years ago

https://aws.amazon.com/workdocs/

"Users can comment on files, send them to others for feedback, and upload new versions without having to resort to emailing multiple versions of their files as attachments. Users can take advantage of these capabilities wherever they are, using the device of their choice, including PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. Amazon WorkDocs offers IT administrators the option of integrating with existing corporate directories, flexible sharing policies and control of the location where data is stored."

leggomylibro3• 9 years ago

That's exactly what it is; Amazon has its fingers in so many pots that it can claim anything is related to their area of business. In a sane world, this sort of consideration would be strictly confined to what the employee actually worked on for the company, not what the company broadly works on.

bluGill5• 9 years ago

Shareholders for Amazon should be concerned that Amazon is letting their employees know too much about plans in other divisions.

It is fair to say a VP knows the DETAILED plans of that division enough that doing the same thing for a competitor should be a problem. However VP experience should let him go to a competitor in a different division as his knowledge of the plans should be vague enough as to not matter.

bhouston• 9 years ago

That is sort of dumb. I can more understand if he went to Google Cloud or Azure, but this is a very very broad usage of a non-compete clause. They are setting themselves up to lose I think.

mrep2• 9 years ago

This whole case is odd since I have never heard of it being enforced even if you switch to a competitor.

My manager went from AWS to Azure and it was no big deal. He even finished out his 2 weeks and our director gave him a farewell at our (director level) all hands.

deagle50• 9 years ago

how long ago was this if you don't mind me asking?

Bedon2924• 9 years ago

I recently changed jobs, and feared my old employer could (but not necessarily would) come after me for non-compete. So, first my new Employer's lawyer looked over everything and said I should be good. Then I hired my own lawyer, to do the same thing (and look over the new employers docs as well) just to cover myself independently. And finally I got in writing that my new employer would cover any legal action pursued by my old employer, just in case.

I would highly recommend the same to anyone else. Absolutely worth the time and money to be safe and covered if you still live / work somewhere they are enforceable.

justdan• 9 years ago

Do you think telling a potential employer that you've signed a non-compete could hurt your chances though?

Bedon2924• 9 years ago

That's a good question. I don't think so, not in the DC area at least. They are standard around here. I think its expected that you have, and will sign a new one with the new employer anyways.

During my my interview process one of the potential employers even asked to see any non-compete and NDAs that I had with my current employer, before they would move forward. Because they want to make sure they are in the clear too.

I suppose it could hurt in some situations, but I feel its best to be open and honest about the situation. If you are changing careers, you may be safe to not bring it up, but otherwise at least talk to your own lawyer.

Bartweiss4• 9 years ago

Potentially. They'd have to weigh both the legitimacy of the non-compete and their ability to either fight it or eat the costs of losing a new hire. But it's also good full-disclosure, since they could probably dismiss you on the same grounds.

Someone caught behind a harsh-and-enforceable noncompete could certainly find getting hired very tricky. At that point they might well have to move - for instance, to California where out-of-state noncompetes are (usually) void.

ghaff2• 9 years ago

It certainly can. I worked for a (very) small consulting firm. We basically wouldn't entertain hiring anyone with a non-compete that was remotely applicable. Just too much potential risk/cost. Doubly so if they worked for a client or a competitor. (Quite common.)

Someone1234• 9 years ago

Sounds very thorough, but also very expensive.

Plus it relies on the new employer being willing to indemnify you, which many would refuse. Did you get that assurance in writing by the way?

Many of these noncompete disputes seem to boil down less to legalise, and more to a company's weight class. If an Amazon or a Google, sues a startup for a noncompete, then the startup will lose, even if they're legally right (legal fees, injunctions, travel costs (assuming inconvenient court, etc).

Bedon2924• 9 years ago

Its true, it wasn't cheap, it did take about 2 hours of my lawyers time to do their thorough research. (Edit) But I would much rather spend two hours on a lawyer to be safe, than spend a week on them being in court.

And I suppose I was lucky that my employer was willing to do it, but they did do so in writing. Their lawyer already looked over everything and agreed, so was low risk to them.

And yes I could see the problem with large going after small. Which is a whole other issue. At least in Virginia non-competes are very strict on how they can be enforced. If something is deemed 'too broad' it will be thrown right out. And it has to be a similar position at a direct competitor. I think a small company does have a fair chance against big ones in these situations, at least here. Unless of course they really are breaching the non-compete.

(Edit) I suppose my point should be, cover yourself as much as you can. Not everyone may get as lucky as I did, but at least try. The last thing you want is to end up blindsided by a situation such as this story.

JustSomeNobody2• 9 years ago

I worked for a company that wrote software for a particular industry. It was bought and the buyers gave everyone three days to sign a no-compete or quit. Worked there a while until I found a new job writing software for a different industry. New company had a subsidiary that wrote software for old company's industry. Got a letter from new company saying I would in no way do work at the subsidiary, gave it to old company's legal office and got permission to work for new company.

It was a hassle, but not nearly as bad as having to get my own lawyer and such.

dangero• 9 years ago

The key here being you had to get permission to take on your new job from your current employer. You were at their mercy to continue your career just because you worked as their employee for a while. What if they had said no? If you weren't taking trade secrets with you, then should they really be in the conversation at all?

bsder• 9 years ago

And the old company could still sue you anyway.

Even though non-competes are illegal in California, a company can be a jerk about it and force you to court to get it thrown out--which will take a long time and be expensive.

driverdan• 9 years ago

This is nothing new. Amazon has attempted to enforce their non-compete clauses again and again, often losing but causing financial burdens on the individuals and their new employers. Just another reason why you shouldn't work for Amazon.

austenallred• 9 years ago

It also makes former Amazon employees radioactive; if you're an employer and you know you might get sued by hiring someone from Amazon, you might pass.

knd775• 9 years ago

Hopefully it works differently than that. As in, prospective employees don't want to be 'infected' by Amazon, so they don't start working there.

Obviously this is a long shot, but if this happened often enough to become a problem for Amazon, they might remove the non-compete clause from their employment contracts.

indogooner• 9 years ago

Yeah that's why I chuckled after reading this - “This feels more like a general bullying behavior that you usually see from legacy ‘Day Two’ companies,”.

Agree that this pisses off not just prospective hires but also existing employees.

LinuxBender• 9 years ago

Are there documented cases of them going after non C-Level folks? If so, their legal team must be massive.

rpazyaquian• 9 years ago

So, random question: if you end up interviewing for Amazon at some point, is it a faux-pas to bring up legal troubles and controversial issues like this while speaking to your interviewers? Is it a bad idea to bring up (for example) this non-compete behavior on the part of the company when negotiating, or should you keep quiet about it?

This seems like the sort of thing that should give someone pause when interviewing with Amazon for a job.

MrLeap2• 9 years ago

If you don't want a job I'm sure that's a good thing to bring up.

When I interviewed there I made some brief remarks about the downsides to consolidation to one of the 8~ people they had me talk to that day. His face turned a little sour. I wonder if it was that or my salary demands that made them not extend an offer to me. Oh well ;)

discodave• 9 years ago

They would have extended an offer or not independently of your salary demands. The question you asked would have been a minor point in the debrief if it was discussed at all. If you didn't get an offer it is probably because you didn't "meet the bar".

koolba• 9 years ago

I'd ignore the topic entirely till it comes up for a signature, then tell them you won't sign it.

hodgesrm• 9 years ago

Or send it back with markup. A lot of companies will wipe off stuff at that point because the manager wants to make the hire. This is the point where you have the most leverage in making the deal.

It's also important to stay unemotional, e.g., treat it at the same level as what your office chair looks like. You just want them to agree, not start wondering if you are a good fit.

I personally dislike non-competes but the point is to get it removed, not make some big statement. (Unless your goal is to make a statement, not get the job under desirable conditions.)

CogitoCogito• 9 years ago

If you're not desperate, you should definitely push back on any non-compete clauses during hiring. You really shouldn't sign any agreement you aren't comfortable with and should instead make changes until you're okay with it.

Twirrim4• 9 years ago

So, random question: if you end up interviewing for Amazon at some point, is it a faux-pas to bring up legal troubles and controversial issues like this while speaking to your interviewers?

All your interviewers will tell you is that they couldn't possibly comment on such a subject, and move on.

bm1362• 9 years ago

Unless you're interviewing for a Director position or above, there will be little value in prompting a personal answer from the interviewer. They're there to ask very specific questions, give feedback to your hiring manager and move on. They have very little power and insight into this kind of stuff.

legohead2• 9 years ago

Any controversial question is going to potentially cost you. The interviewers will be asked their opinion of you and they can simply say 'pass'.

I think I failed my interview at Blizzard when I brought up them firing a ton of people -- I just wanted to know how secure my job was, and wanted to know their perception of the firing being on the inside.

jimbokun2• 9 years ago

"Last year, an attempt was made to pass legislation that would have banned non-compete agreements in Washington state, but the bill stalled after business groups, including the Washington Technology Industry Association and the Association of Washington Business, opposed the bill."

This is a perfect encapsulation of political reality in 21st century USA.

Corporations run every aspect of our government, no one else has a meaningful voice.

treehau53• 9 years ago

What if the people didn't purchase products or services from these said corporations who do these awful things? Ultimately it always comes back to us and our complacency. We would like for things to be different, but we like our conveniences more.

sharkweek• 9 years ago

My favorite quote from The Wire:

"You want it to be one way. But it's the other way."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409Pjtq7jzY

GavinMcG• 9 years ago

"What if a large, diverse group of people who are busy living their lives could act collectively in a way that's as effective as a well-funded group of professional lobbyists?"

You're right in the most technical sense, in that all of human social reality comes back to "us". But blaming complacency, rather than the exponentially more difficult problem "we" have to solve, is completely bizarre.

bluGill5• 9 years ago

You are in the industry, and thus affected by the issue: the most overly broad, worst case, one sided, law of this type is in your favor. Thus it is unfair to even ask that question at this time.

First we need to ask if the law was fair. What are the real concerns of the other side. Did the law address them fairly? Just because you are biased doesn't excuse you from understanding the other side and ensuring that you are fair to them.

Next, you need to ensure that you knowledgeable and involved with other issues. You boycotting alone is meaningless as you ultimately are small compared to people who are not in the industry. Everybody has concerns about their domain that nobody else knows about. Are you informed and helping in the local nurse/hospital depute? What about the retails workers issues (the types of people who enjoy working at wal-mart overall)...

TYPE_FASTER• 9 years ago

I could drop Prime membership. It would be somewhat more difficult to stop buying products from any company who used AWS. In another case where I knew people who moved from one org to another, which then was sued for similar reasons as in the article, both companies were enterprise organizations that would not be impacted by consumer shopping patterns.

theobon• 9 years ago

The "vote with your dollars" narrative is becoming a common way of dismissing peoples concerns without consideration. It reinforces the plutocracy. I voted by voting!

Purchasing from companies whose ethics you agree with makes sense but that isn't going to stop lobbying or change how laws are passed. That battle will only be won through politics and politicians. Get involved politically and/or hold your politicians accountable.

vkou4• 9 years ago

What if people stopped buying cotton that was grown and picked by slaves?

I mean, they could have, but they didn't. You can't pin the blame (Or even dilute it a bit) for American slavery on a Frenchman wearing a cotton shirt.

mkempe• 9 years ago

Similar bills have been introduced repeatedly in WA over the last several years. Rumor has it that both Microsoft and Amazon are somehow responsible for defeating these attempts. There is a 2017 bill that made progress in March this year, not sure what the latest status is. [1] [2]

By now one would think all US states would be eager to imitate California and simply reject non-competes. I think Colorado is close but not quite as radical.

[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2017/scaled-back-bill-aimed-providi...

[2] http://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1967&Year=2017

Jach4• 9 years ago

If this was true, Trump would not be President.

Corporations have a voice, they might even have the biggest voice (except many corporations have conflicting voices, just like people) but they don't yet run every aspect of the government. Honestly if they did I would expect things to be a lot more efficient, at the expense of certain liberties.

jimbokun2• 9 years ago

...???

Trump has been more corporatist than even Obama or W or Clinton...not sure how far back you'd have to go to find a President more focused on the needs of corporations over other citizens.

comice• 9 years ago

Vendor and now employer lock-in - always innovating!

walterkobayashi• 9 years ago

Ha!

bsamuels• 9 years ago

if you move from washington to a state where non-competes are unenforcable, can amazon still sue you?

Dimi99092• 9 years ago

good question.

Jach4• 9 years ago

Similarly: if you live in WA but have a non-compete agreement with your employer who is headquartered in CA, is that enforceable anywhere?

dbot• 9 years ago

Non-competes are tricky: they essentially try to extend trade secret protections to information that people know (which is hard to track), instead of information that's written down (which is easy to track, see Waymo). It seems most people on HN are fine with protecting the latter, but not the former.

In my opinion, a non-compete is something that needs to be separately negotiated and compensated, rather than lumping it into "employment." If you agree to a non-compete, you are paid $X in exchange. If you violate the non-compete, you must pay $X back (and there could be a negotiated multiplier, e.g. $3X). In the absence of agreement, the legal default should be 1:1. If you are paid nothing for a non-compete, it is unenforceable. If you are paid $1, you must pay $1, and so on.

This gives each side an opportunity to value and agree upon the non-compete apart from the job itself. Eventually, most industries would settle on standards.

athenot• 9 years ago

In some states, non-competes are only enforceable if there is a payment made after the employee's separation. It would appear Washington doesn't have that provision.

I'm no lawyer so I may be totally wrong on this.

jakozaur• 9 years ago

In many countries (e.g. Poland) non-competes are only legal if you pay X% (e.g. in Poland it is 25%) of salary for as long as you signed non-compete after your employment ends.

This is still not ideal. The best is to ban non-competes or make them even more expensive.

From economical perspective for ecosystem, non-competes are bad. They reduce the competition and may force some talented person to be underutilized below potential. Plus open whole class of abuse. "Our flipping burger strategy is so unique that you couldn't do it elsewhere"

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/upshot/when-the-guy-makin...

PKop• 9 years ago

Non-competes enforced in this way certainly seem unfair to employees.

But let's talk this through. Assuming we all agree we don't like them, what's the alternative? There seem to exist obvious negative consequences of them not existing in any form.

Wouldn't large companies such as Google, Amazon etc be able to poach any employee of let's say a startup competitor, by simply paying way more, therefore being able to steal ideas, technology, etc?

Or even amongst (well-capitalized) companies of any size: a free-for-all for employees within industries, good or bad? Maybe not so bad actually.. what say you?

Seriously asking because I'm trying to envision the positives and negatives of them being outlawed..

dullgiulio• 9 years ago

Just put the burden of keeping the market open and competitive to the corps, not the empolyees.

The government's role becomes that of watchdog against monopolies. Employees should have the right to work wherever they like.

Where I live, it's only possible to sign a contract to get paid not to compete after you leave. If you start competing, you lose the pay.

bluGill5• 9 years ago

Mostly it doesn't matter. If you gave me a compete copy of our competitors source code and there was no restriction on using it I wouldn't spend more than a few hours looking at it. We already have our working code built on our architecture. It is quicker to recreate their algorithms from scratch in our project than to read their code. We might look into their code for something specific (probably their data file format), but even then it is likely we would document what they do and reimplement it in our system from documentation.

The above isn't just speculation. In a previous job I made third party scan tools for cars. One manufacture didn't provide their legally mandated documentation. When lawyers contacted them about it they panicked and shipped us their source code and the above is what we did. (giving us source code doesn't meet the legal requirements, but at least it was enough that we could get our features working)

bgentry• 9 years ago

You perfectly described the alternative. Rather than relying on non-competes, employers must pay their employees sufficiently well and treat them well enough to discourage poaching. Better in every way for employees, but possibly expensive for employers.

If the CA tech scene has shown us anything, it's that companies will do just fine without relying on repressive & anti-competitive employment contracts.

unit91• 9 years ago

... but possibly expensive for employers

Very likely prohibitively expensive for a lot of employers. Suppose you're a small-business owner with a great product, albeit with a limited but growing customer base. You work where cost of living is much lower than SV. $100K for a developer is pretty good pay, and you can't afford to pay, say, $125K per year. One of the "big guys" offers some of your devs $200K per year remote to bring their knowledge and reimplement a knock-off. You're sunk, and not because you are too hard-hearted to pay better salaries.

I'm not saying the current non-compete system is optimal (I've been bitten by it), but some reasonable level of protection needs to exist or we'll descend into (near) monopoly territory even more rapidly than we currently are.

gav• 9 years ago

My issue with non-competes is that the vast majority of people who sign them don't understand what they are signing, nor do they negotiate the terms. They feel that they are in a weak position; it's the first day of a job and if they don't sign they'll be unemployed. What's worse is that you are generally presented with a stack of paperwork to sign and told it's just a formality.

There's also the misunderstanding that everything you sign is binding, it's not uncommon in CA for employees to sign what looks like a non-compete, and then believe that it is enforceable. Very few people have a lawyer, or can afford to pay a lawyer to review these agreements. Even fewer are brave enough not to sign them then and there.

I've seen some very egregious language before, one of my favorites was one that restricted the employee from working for any past, present, or future (defined as one year) customers of the employer--and their future employers from the same! I've got no idea how this was supposed to be enforced, but it caused the signee to be in fear of being sued.

mattm• 9 years ago

It's pretty simple. Keep non-competes but require the company to pay a certain percentage of your salary during the period the non-compete specifies after you've left the company.

If you are so valuable that a company is worried about you going to a competitor then they should have to put their money where there mouth is.

briankwest• 9 years ago

This is one thing Oklahoma got right, A non-competes is not enforceable except in a couple of narrow instances.

mankash666• 9 years ago

Federal courts need to set nation wide standards on these unfair practices. It's 2017, but we still allow companies to routinely violate free will - a basic human right!

devy• 9 years ago

Anecdotally, I've heard that non-compete agreements are very hard to be enforced in some states (e.g. NY) due to the burden to prove damages.

outside1234• 9 years ago

at this point, why would anyone work for Amazon?

Dimi99092• 9 years ago

pay mortgage

pinewurst2• 9 years ago

The incorrect sense that it'll be different for them.

iamleppert2• 9 years ago

I've heard nothing but bad things about working at Amazon. They may have an amazing (technically) company and are winning in a lot of ways, but at what cost?

I'm often hit up by Amazon recruiters and I've talked to a few before and got the sense (just by their tone) its not some place I want to be working. They also were deceptive in their recruiting tactics.

pinewurst2• 9 years ago

Can you please elaborate on the deceptive recruiting tactics?

iamleppert2• 9 years ago

Saying that you're being recruited for "special projects" and then once you talk to them more you realize its clearly not the case.

kmicklas• 9 years ago

Amazon employees should organize, strike, and get these non competes mass nulled.

jokoon• 9 years ago

I don't understand how non compete deal are even legal. I thought competition was good in the economy...

I mean wouldnt both conservatives and liberals agree?

TheCoelacanth• 9 years ago

Unfortunately for many people "free market" means the freedom of the powerful to exploit others in any way that the want, not the freedom for anyone to compete fairly.

CobrastanJorji• 9 years ago

This feels more like a general bullying behavior that you usually see from legacy ‘Day Two’ companies.

Ouch. Going right for the Amazon jugular right there.

christophilus• 9 years ago

Non-competes really should be illegal. I have a friend who is a doctor. He is being forced to sign a non-compete for a 12 mile radius and 2 years.

The irony is that his boss is forcing this on them because she quit her job and brought a bunch of her former coworkers with her in order to start her business, and she doesn't want anyone to do the same to her.

What it means is my friend essentially can't find another job without either:

A. Moving (which is not an easy choice if you have a family) or

B. Subjecting himself to a significantly increased commute

This means his current employer can essentially take advantage of him, as she knows he won't be going anywhere unless the situation becomes truly unbearable.

drawkbox• 9 years ago

Non-competes... anti-worker, anti-innovation, anti-freedom, anti-competition, anti-freemarket, anti-independence, anti-entrepreneurial, anti-business (to the ones wanting the skilled labor not the ones the employee left because it is a free employment market) and fully anti-American.

Non competes treat employees like they have no value and are mere slaves or sharecroppers.

I especially like the ones where you have a contract that is for 3-6 months and they want a non-compete for multiple years.

How about this, if a company really wants a non-compete, then make sure they are paid fully above salary, otherwise this is just ownership of skilled labor.

simonebrunozzi• 9 years ago

I remember Gene. We worked together on a demo for the launch of AWS Workspaces, back when I was a Tech Evangelist. Unfortunately, at the last moment we couldn't present it at re:Invent. Can't disclose much else (unless you buy me a good espresso in SF).

I don't like non-compete agreements. They are now far away from their intended purpose. It's wrong to point fingers at a single company, though - the entire sector suffers from this.

Amazon sues former AWS VP over non-compete deal

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