Amazon sues employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-competes

http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-sues-employee-taking-google-cloud-job-new-test-non-compete-laws/

by _pius • 12 years ago

324 196 12 years ago

chris_mahan4• 12 years ago

Amazon, sorry, but unless you're paying his salary to sit at home, you're just whining because Google offered a better job.

You could have kept the guy, if he was so important to your business.

I'm not a happy Amazon Prime customer today.

actsasbuffoon• 12 years ago

Exactly right. The best way to keep your talent from working for the competition is to keep them working for you.

turnip1979• 12 years ago

I am pretty shocked to see this. For sales jobs or executives, I can understand. But for your average tech guy? Are they kidding?

ojbyrne• 12 years ago

"strategic partnerships manager"..."Szabadi was directly and integrally involved with the marketing of Amazon’s cloud computing business to its partners and resellers, and played a significant role in developing Amazon’s business strategy and direction in this area"

btgeekboy2• 12 years ago

Except he's not your "average tech guy." The very first page of the complaint lists him in a "business development role." Going on, "[i]n this position, he was responsible for developing and growing Amazon's relationships with partners who utilize and sell Amazon's cloud computing services."

walshemj6• 12 years ago

that is such broad statement it could apply to any one from the company's top sales guy to a junior customer support rep

narwally• 12 years ago

From the article it seems that he was in sales and marketing, and not involved with the tech side.

AceJohnny2• 12 years ago

One key item:

"The suit, filed June 27 in King County Superior Court in Seattle, seeks to take advantage of a more favorable climate for non-compete deals in Washington state, where the terms of such deals have generally been allowed, if considered reasonable. Non-compete clauses have repeatedly been found invalid in California, where Google is based."

The article doesn't say Szabadi was or currently is geographically employed (is his current contract with Google in California or Seattle?), which I assume would have a bearing on the suit's strength

rgbrenner• 12 years ago

page 4 of the suit - Szabadi worked in Washington when he was at Amazon, and still resides in Washington.

dctoedt• 12 years ago

There's likely to be a certain element of race-to-the-courthouse here. If Szabadi is about to move to California, then Google could file a lawsuit in a state court there, seeking a declaratory judgment that under California law his non-compete is unenforceable. A California court likely would rule in Google's favor --- and if that were the first-filed lawsuit, then it might take priority over any later-filed lawsuit Amazon might bring in Seattle. Something akin to that happened in Application Group, Inc. v. Hunter Group, Inc., 61 Cal. App. 4th 881 (1998) [1] [2].

[1] http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1290227502038697...

[2] http://www.whitecase.com/files/Publication/dcf3d85c-1c1b-4bf...

bsimpson• 12 years ago

Don't agreements like this typically include language to the effect of:

"This agreement is entirely enforceable under the laws of the state of ____, under the jurisdiction of a binding arbitrator chosen by the employer, except for injunctions which are handled by the ____ District Court in ____ County?"

btgeekboy2• 12 years ago

As much as I am not a fan of non-competes, having read the complaint, it appears that this is the exact reason non-competes exist. This isn't about an Amazon SDE that worked on the amazon.com retail site moving over to work on Gmail; the guy was responsible for working with AWS partners, and now works in the exact same position for a direct competitor, in a position where external contacts and relationships are key. Google even recognized this with their own agreement not to use that information for a period of 6 months.

chris_mahan4• 12 years ago

It's still wrong. If Google's offering is better than Amazon's for some customers, why can't the sales guy who used to work for Amazon tell the customers they should get Google's offering? Customer wins.

Am I missing something?

lotsofpulp2• 12 years ago

The person buying the cloud offerings is not the only customer. Amazon is also a customer, and in their compensation agreement with the vendor (the ex-employee), the ex-employee agreed (presumably) not to work for someone else for some period of time.

Whether or not that should be legal is a different matter. Sometimes if all employers are doing it, it can result in an unfair and unhealthy environment for employees, however, sometimes if all employees can switch jobs willy nilly and take clients with them (especially those with strong relationships with clients), then it can become an unhealthy environment for employers.

opendais5• 12 years ago

High level corporate sales is basically buying a suave guy who has a rolodex of people who can make purchasing decisions.

It is a huge problem if that guy can then turn around and use the contacts he gained through Amazon to compete with Amazon. He is basically turning Amazon's network of contacts into his own and then selling that access to a competitor. It is basically the sales/bizdev equivalent of taking Amazon code and handing it over to Google for a price. Amazon shouldn't have to pay money to negate that risk.

Technically, even in California, if he did something like that it would hold under any reasonable non-solicitation agreement I believe. It is the exact reason these agreements exist.

I'm not 100% sure that is what happened but it sounds like it.

netcraft2• 12 years ago

The problem with this line of reasoning is that you are effectively blocking someone from participating in their chosen profession if they don't continue to work for the same company for whatever reason. Just because his connections were valuable doesn't change the fact that he was also valuable - Amazon shouldn't have the right to keep him from using his experience in his profession.

ghshephard• 12 years ago

Agreed that he shouldn't be kept from using his experience, or knowledge - but the question is, should he be allowed to transition all of the customers that he acquired (or perhaps even inherited) while at Amazon over to Google?

opendais5• 12 years ago

He could have joined a SaaS company and sold a non-competing service. For instance, New Relic.

Same industry, same basic clientele, 0 competition from Amazon, 0 grounds to hit him with the noncompete.

neumann• 12 years ago

I was under the impression that non-competes were legally implemented not to stop employees moving, but to stop an owner from selling a business with goodwill, and then starting up a competitor across the road and reducing the goodwill be retaining their old customers. I have no evidence, but had assumed that the modern non-compete enforced on employees by employers came out of a precedent based on this law and has slowly gained acceptance. Happy to be educated if somebody knows more.

jwarkentin2• 12 years ago

I don't know the history but if that were the case then the non-compete should be between the owner and buyer, not employer and employee. It makes no sense to go after the employees to prevent former owner competition.

PeterisP• 12 years ago

Nope, provisions for that are in M&A agreements and part of the reason why acquiring companies takes so much money and [lawyer]time. And it's in no way a "precedent based on this law" - what do you mean by "this law"? All of these provisions are in private contracts, not in legislation.

The classic use of non-competes is for salespeople or high-level service people (lawyers, consultants, etc) not taking their customers with them when leaving.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

Those are one of the few types of non-competes that are enforceable in California. Otherwise, the majority of non-competes in America, by raw count, are not about owners selling the company.

nostromo2• 12 years ago

Amazon should compete using the quality of their product, not on the quality of their rolodex.

serge2k6• 12 years ago

Not generally how it works.

Ask any startup founder who had a better product and failed against the bigger competition.

jmspring2• 12 years ago

Corporations can treat employees as cogs, but expect them to not be a similar fitting cog in another organization if they decide to leave of their own will? Yet, they can be fired at any time? Seems one sided.

electic• 12 years ago

Apparently working at Amazon is damaging to your career.

nostrademons• 12 years ago

Well, he did get hired by Google...most people would consider that a success.

hatred2• 12 years ago

Ex-AWS employee here. I tend to disagree with the above statement. Though, their retention numbers are pathetic to say the least, but it was an awesome place to work and learn and most of the people who do leave tend to go to the high flying places.

potatolicious5• 12 years ago

Ex-Amazonian here also. Sadly, Amazon looks great on your resume, it's still considered in the "AAA" tier of tech employers, standing side by side with the likes of Google, Facebook, etc.

Realistically I'd argue it's more on the high end of the "B" tier, but that's neither here nor there.

Amazon's attrition rate is insane. Not high, insane. This should tell you a lot about what it's like to work there. I too learned a lot, and it continues to pay dividends on my resume, so I guess that's how they get away with it.

sharemywin• 12 years ago

Way to win the battle and lose the war! Never hire anyone that goes to work at Amazon at the senior exec level from this point forward because they're clearly clueless.

luu• 12 years ago

I was just talking to a friend of mine at amazon, who said that a lot of people (including some pretty high-level people) thought prosecuting the one-click patent was a mistake because it actually made it harder to recruit.

That's nothing compared to this. Seems like a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

Wait till they use that photography on a white background patent.

jwarkentin2• 12 years ago

Haha, indeed. Who would ever have thought to put a picture on a white background? Gotta protect that IP!

smackfu• 12 years ago

I think the "must relocate to Seattle" makes it really hard to recruit.

hatred2• 12 years ago

Not Really, considering that they have opened offices in the bay area exclusively for AWS openings.

fatjokes• 12 years ago

Note to self, given the choice, work in finance rather than Amazon. They apparently treat their employees better. At least they have the decency to offer you salary while you wait out a non-compete.

rdl2• 12 years ago

I've heard a lot of negative things about Amazon as an employer (mainly from current or ex-Amazon people), which is depressing because they're an awesome vendor and I want them to continue to be able to get great people and thus produce awesome stuff. (I've also heard "but X group is awesome and not like that" too, though.)

This really doesn't help things on that front.

fixermark• 12 years ago

Like most large companies, there are things that people like about them and things that people don't like about them.

If you really want to know what they're like on average, dig up their recruiting and retention numbers. ;)

dsugarman• 12 years ago

they are a great vendor by facade, they bully and collude with their suppliers to drive up prices on consumers. they systematically bury competitors with a trojan horse strategy on their marketplace. using dirty tactics and infringing on anti-trust, they can always appear to be the best vendor to consumers.

rdl2• 12 years ago

I go to a relatively well designed website and get products delivered in 1-2 days for cheap. From that perspective, I really like them.

AWS, while absurdly expensive vs. metal IMO, is also something a lot of people have built on, and it's evolving so fast that no one has caught up to it, even when companies like Rackspace, IBM, etc. recognize it as an existential threat.

cracker_jacks2• 12 years ago

The best way to stop this is not taking jobs that require a non-compete agreement. By signing offers with non-competes, you're literally acknowledging this is acceptable.

zak_mc_kracken2• 12 years ago

The best way to stop this is not taking jobs that require a non-compete agreement

Easy to say, and then one day you get an offer for a job you really, really like.

By signing offers with non-competes, you're literally acknowledging this is acceptable.

Not at all. Very few (if any) of these terms are legally binding. The only way to actually find out is to have them challenged in court.

If anything, the only way to stop this is for people to keep accepting jobs tied to non compete agreements so that we can finally see how legally viable they are. Seems like we are about to find out.

cracker_jacks2• 12 years ago

Easy to say, and then one day you get an offer for a job you really, really like. Then weigh the cost/benefit of accepting it or negotiate with the company to change it.

My point is not whether non-competes are legally binding. It's the fact that when you sign a contract, you and your employer are agreeing with the terms set forth in good faith. You shouldn't sign employment agreements that you have no intention of fulfilling.

Starting a new job should be a good thing for both the employer and employee. Both should be on the same page.

khuey• 12 years ago

I understand that California is not for everyone for any number of reasons but if you stay in CA non-competes are basically irrelevant to your career.

QuiteMouse• 12 years ago

I don't get why, if you signed a non-compete in good faith, you don't just honor the agreement ? Either stick up for your morals and don't take the job because of the non-compete or actually accept it not only as a legally binding contract (because they are rarely enforceable) but a moral one. I've caught employees poaching customer lists after they turned in their 2 weeks, verifiable by security software and video camera evidence. We didn't prosecute. Why shouldn't a business have non-competes though ? It's just to protect themselves from situations like I described. I wish the world was a happy place where things like this didn't happen, but it isn't, and not protecting yourself from this kind of thing is just asking to get screwed over. Nobody is a perfect judge of character.

simula67• 12 years ago

Maybe Google can win back some karma they lost for participating in the "No Poaching" deal with Apple et al by defending this guy.

aragot• 12 years ago

This! Yes, why does it even go to public press? In France 60% of programming jobs are through consulting companies, they constantly play the game of no-poaching, and those get solved after commission between the two employers. Either one is also customer of the first, either they pay.

nostromo2• 12 years ago

Governments are always trying to find a way to steal a bit of the magic of Silicon Valley, yet little attention is paid to copying California's stance on non-competes. It allows for a free-flow of talent that is just as important as the free-flow of capital. Washington State should copy that.

Hilariously, in Washington State, you can even enforce a non-compete when you fire the employee.

jmspring2• 12 years ago

There is a reason, despite having some real-estate in WA, I've refused to move up and work there. CA, despite some faults, has it's advantages (beyond superior weather).

BrandonM• 12 years ago

CA, despite some faults...

No pun intended?

tluyben23• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what the laws in CA are exactly, but here (EU) non competes don't work generally. If you are a programmer and you go work as a programmer for the competition then even if you signed stacks of non-competes, they cannot be enforced. Simply because you are a programmer and not allowing you to take that job would mean you are potentially without a job which is about the worst thing that could happen. Most non-competes refer to you resigning and taking clients with your but even that is hard to enforce. The basics are ; if you are a nice company to work for and with, you have nothing to fear.

glandium• 12 years ago

I know first hand of a few cases of non competes working (in France), and they all involved the ex-employer paying substantial amounts of money for the time the ex-employee was prevented from working for the competition.

nawitus• 12 years ago

EU doesn't have a harmonized legislation on non-competes. They can certainly be enforced in Finland, even though they're unheard of with typical employees. Normally only executives have them.

bowlofpetunias• 12 years ago

That's very unrealistic and naive. Non-competes are quite enforceable in the Netherlands, which is why me and many people I know refuse to sign them.

Yes, companies that enforce them are rare and complete dicks, but they can and some will. Companies that won't don't need them either, so either way the negotiation about the non-compete becomes a very brief one.

kabdib2• 12 years ago

When I moved to WA from CA, I was already working for a certain large software company. I asked HR if I had to re-sign the employee agreement.

They said no.

When I left them, they tried to do a non-compete on me. I pointed out that the agreement that I had signed didn't include one (since CA doesn't allow them) and they tried to go behind the scenes with lawyers anyway.

Let's just say that it worked out pretty well.

zw1234562• 12 years ago

I hope this comment does not get me down voted into oblivion, but just to play the devils advocate here, the guy did sign the non-compete agreement, which, setting aside legal aspects, is kind of like giving your word. I agree, non-compete agreements are stupid, but you don't have to sign them, you can always take a different job that does not require one, probably for less money. What is your word worth?

skriticos2• 12 years ago

I'm not a fan of down-votes, but I will try to (kind of) refute your central point according to the argument pyramid. (Not fully disagreeing with you, just some thoughts on the matter).

The central question is: did he really knowingly sign a non-compete agreement and is it lawful in the jurisdiction?

Yes, he signed the contract, which was likely a 20 page standard issue paper that was mostly written by Amazon lawyers in small print.

Now most of us don't send a copy of employment contracts to our layers and discuss it with them for hours before signing (that's kind of expensive).

That's why there are some limitations on what can go into a contract in some places (at least in Europe, but I assume the U.S. has something similar). For instance they can't write in there that you will be their slave, providing unpaid work without the ability to quit, be beaten as motivation and lawfully enforce it, even if you sign the paper.

Other things need to be explicitly clarified to be accepted at court. For instance, if a big software corporation would add a clause to their license agreement on page 25 that your house belongs to them if you click on "I Agree", it would most likely not hold ground in a court. If they explicitly explained this to you (with a few witnesses), it might be heard in court.

The question here is (and it's far from clear cut) is if this contract holds it's ground in court.

Back to the central point: this means, that Amazon might have to prove that they made a good effort to clarify this clause in the contract explicitly and it's lawful in the state he worked. That's up to the court to decide.

Now if they can prove that they did make a good faith effort to clarify his contract, he agreed and then went on and willfully broke it, then he is in a troublesome spot.

INAL, this is not an advice for anything and I'm not liable for any of the above.

zw1234562• 12 years ago

Good point. I did not think of that, legal agreements can be made to obfuscate, much like those online agreements. If that is the case then I am with you completely, it is unfair. But if he signed it knowing the consequences then he should live them in my view.

int19h• 12 years ago

The details are different, but s/Amazon/Microsoft and you have a headline from 2005: http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-sues-over-Google-hire/2100-10...

bcantrill• 12 years ago

This is a pattern for Amazon: I work for a competitor to Amazon, and they went after us for violating a non-compete after we hired an AWS engineer. Our counsel had reviewed the non-compete before we hired the engineer, and concluded that the non-compete didn't actually prevent an engineer from working for a competitor, but rather prevented much narrower activity like poaching customer lists or supplier relationships. We were somewhat surprised that Amazon aggressively pursued the matter because it seemed so obvious to us that they wouldn't prevail. After Amazon sent us (and, it must be said, the engineer personally) a very nasty letter claiming that the non-compete was being violated, we retained local counsel and sent them an even nastier one back, making clear that we had no intention of backing down. Ultimately, they backed off, but in this process, I learned that Amazon has pursued this particular non-compete "hundreds" of times, and has never (to the best of the knowledge of our local counsel in Seattle) prevailed once. In part this is because Washington allows non-competes, but also doesn't like to infringe on the free flow of labor -- temporary restraining orders preventing an individual from working for a company are extraordinarily rare. (This is in contrast to states like Texas and Massachusetts, where non-competes are infamously enforceable.)

So if Amazon never prevails, why do they do it? One of the peculiar attributes of Amazon's action against us is that it was well publicized within Amazon -- and was apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor, but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here. (Ironically, the executive only learned of all of this when the technology itself became a top story here on HN.) My conclusion from this: this action wasn't actually directed at us -- Amazon is smart enough to know that nothing would come of it with respect to our actions -- but rather at their own employees. That is, Amazon's pursuit of the non-compete against our engineer was their way of shooting an escapee in the back -- and sending a sharp message to any other AWS inmates with similar ambitions.

In terms of an immediate effect, Amazon's move worked to a degree: our next few hires from AWS were slowed a little bit by fear of similar action. That said, the fact that we had prevailed against Amazon also gave these engineers the confidence that we could and would do so again -- and ultimately, it didn't prevent anyone from matriculating. It did, however, have one lasting effect: the engineer that was pursued went from thinking fondly of his years at AWS to hating AWS and Amazon with a white-hot passion that still burns today. In the end, enforcing a non-compete is like erecting a Berlin Wall: if you feel you need it, you have much deeper problems...

ramblingrain• 12 years ago

This doesn't surprise me. And I am actually quite curious, because after almost two years working at Amazon.com I quit, thinking Amazon.com was Google was Every Corp > 1000 headcount.

Since then, I haven't had the stomach to interview or consider another job. After much reflection, I think it all had to do with Amazon.com, the working conditions, and the tone of the place.

I got it in my head that all corporate jobs are basically like Amazon.com: you sign away all of your intellectual property rights, accept working on things you don't control and take home a nice, better-than-almost-everyone paycheck to wash it down.

I could tell strange stories of working at Amazon.com (I was in a non-traditional engineering role) but they seem more or less pointless.

How does someone go from working at Amazon.com to a small workplace, with passion and freedom? I have floundered! And the oxygen is running out.

Anyway, I wouldn't recommend working there.

blazespin• 12 years ago

You really have to watch which team you join. Platforms had terrible turnover. Some other retail groups had very high morale - especially ones which had just been acquired. AWS was, from what I recall, not too bad though the story above is upsetting.

serge2k6• 12 years ago

Do you not sign over IP rights in other jobs?

mixologic• 12 years ago

Companies seem to want to view employees as somewhat disposable and have shifted the burden of taking care of somebody long term (pensions, retirement, career progression etc) onto the employees themselves. But in doing so they're encouraging labor mobility, and seem strangely shocked to find out that employees would take with them the expertise, history, and network of contacts that they had accumulated and move that value somewhere else.

It's really interesting how they have resorted to strong arming their engineers with these shot in the back non-competes, and couple it with salary collusion and hiring agreements. Throw in the golden handcuffs (that turn into golden dental floss after a few funding rounds -- long after they've gotten their 60-70 hour work weeks out of the true believers) and you see how they are trying to stymie that labor movement.

It's really a wonder that technology workers haven't started forming some sort of union.

serge2k6• 12 years ago

Unions have their own problems, I've worked in a union environment (gov't health care, Canada) and it didn't really address the issues I had with the job. In fact it made some things worse because of the ways they came up with to work within the CBA. That said, within that union I (software dev/ops guy) was under the same CBA as the workers who cleaned the hospitals. So some of the issues may have just been a union that was representing sets of people with different issues. In fairness the things that are universal (e.g. benefits) were handled well for the most part.

There was a post a few months ago about how software development should be a profession and we should have a strong professional association to help represent our interests. To help prevent things like this amazon case.

joshAg• 12 years ago

What would you think of a profession instead of a union?

This piece does a good job explaining: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-d...

whybroke7• 12 years ago

They are not shocked when it happens. The attempt to force employes to stay on using non-compete agreements among other things is exactly because they know employees must move on to survive. They know very well that the failure to provide pensions and career progression will drive employees away so they use force and, quite frankly, terror to keep them with the company.

Particularly lovely is the near universal marriage of at will employment agreements with non compete agreements.

It's really a wonder that technology workers haven't started forming some sort of union.

-The average age kept perpetually at about 28 (meaning only about 5 years work experience)

-The perpetual threat of tech labor imported from overseas.

-The belief that professional association and (gasp!) unions are pure socialist evil or at least are for low paid looser.

And if you think salary collusion and extra legal hiring agreements are shocking, just watch the response there would be to an effective professional association.

marincounty• 12 years ago

They use them in unions too, but in a slightly different way. San Francisco local 6 (Electrician's union). Basically, if you go through, or start their apprenticeship program; you can't walk away and open a non-union shop. This is different than non-compete clause, but in the same realm.

That said, I think Computer Programers should unionize. A lot of thought would have to go into the union, but in the end you guys would be making a decent, consistent salary. The union could stipulate that new start-ups are exempt from union rules; until they, if they reach a certain level of success?

In turn, it would require established companies, like Yahoo Google, and Amazon follow union rules. In the end, the cash might be despirsed among the workers, and the Founders might not throw money around like they are printing it up on a string of Epson Printers? "But Mark, I don't think we can spend a trillion dollars on app.com; we have to pay our employees, and the pension fund needs capital?" Would a Programmer, who spent 30 years learning a coracopua of languages, put up with egotistical rich kids, spent so many hours in front of a box, lost weekends because you had to find the errors---like a pension when you retire?

Oh, Amazon will just move to the Amazon. Maybe not?

ArkyBeagle• 12 years ago

I don't think it'll work.

Unions more or less kinda worked when you had largish enterprises with a lot of employees. This is more or less the world described by John Kenneth Galbraith's "The New Industrial State."

This world doesn't really exist any more. It was undermined by lots of forces. I'd say the main force was people being dissatisfied with the working conditions.

In order for collective bargaining to work, there kind of has to be a collective to bargain for. Humans are not naturally attracted to collectives.

someAccount3• 12 years ago

Internally, employees at Amazon have to go through an extensive review process to contribute bug reports, blog posts, or any activity involving sharing code. And for the oddest reason, any game development of any sort is absolutely forbidden.

dsyko• 12 years ago

I'm curious if they actually give a reason why any sort of game development is forbidden. Is this the case throughout Amazon or only in a specific division?

potatolicious5• 12 years ago

To clarify on this point: Amazon "supports" open sourcing code. To do so you must submit your code to an open source review committee, who will evaluate it for potential competitive threats, usage of privileged company technology, etc.

Which sounds at least semi-reasonable until you realize that the people sitting on this committee have zero incentive to approve requests, while at the same time incentivized heavily to reject requests - since there's personal cost to them if something they approve ends up being used by a major competitor.

I'll leave it to the reader to guess how often things get rejected from open sourcing...

tauslu• 12 years ago

Since Amazon is all about data and conversions, I am sure they expect one or two hits from hundreds of complaints, which could be publiziced within Amazon with more concrete data for retention.

Fuxy4• 12 years ago

I still can't believe Americans are ok with non compete clauses in their contract if you accept that crap somebody will eventually try to enforce it.

I personally think it should be illegal unless amazon volunteers to pay the employee his regular salary for the period he is not allowed to compete.

The same way that if you're not paying for a service you're the product if you're not paying your employee you should have no right to demand anything from him anymore.

tomp• 12 years ago

It doesn't really work that way. Many companies have other kinds of clauses in their contracts, e.g. trade secrets clauses, or non-solicitation clauses. I find those quite reasonable (for a limited period of time, in the case of non-solicitation clauses), and I don't think it's reasonable to expect a company to pay you for the entire duration that the clauses are in effect (in the case of trade secrets, often for life).

psykotic2• 12 years ago

I still can't believe Americans are ok with non compete clauses in their contract if you accept that crap somebody will eventually try to enforce it.

These and other anti-employee clauses (e.g. excessive IP assignment) persist because many programmers simply don't care while others who do care are awful at negotiating compared to their interlocutors who do this for a living. When you try to push back, the standard response you will first hear, an outright lie, is that this is a non-negotiable mandate from their legal counsel and that no-one has ever complained before. If they do budge on their initial terms, they will make it seem like an unprecedented concession that warrants concessions on your end. It's a truly absurd game of back and forth.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

don't lump us all in the same boat please. Face it, some programmers out there go practically orgasmic when they get accepted or even interviewed by some companies that they end all critical thinking and sign on the dotted line.

Similar to the smoker who buys a pack of smokes and ignores the warning on the side; that will never happen to ME, yet turns and buys the lottery ticket thinking happy days are right around the corner.

namdnay• 12 years ago

In france, non-compete clauses are legal, but if the company decide to enforce it they have to pay you 50% of your salary. I think it's a good balance.

pdovy• 12 years ago

These types of non-competes are pretty common in the US in my industry (finance). Generally upon your leaving the firm has the option to enforce your non-compete for a length of time (often 6 months to 1 year), but you are paid some (usually very high) percentage of your salary. That seems fair enough to me - if you're going to force someone not to work, you ought to pay them.

Communitivity• 12 years ago

Bingo. If you accept a non-compete clause, you are part of the problem. You may have no choice if you are desperate - but if you are a decent programmer that really shouldn't be a problem.

I have worked for companies that have non-compete clauses, and 'All your IP belong to us' clauses, and I make sure my hiring letter says I am at all times free to work for whom I want, and that anything I create outside of company time without using company equipment is my own.

If all the good programmers refuse to work for a company that tries to impose those clauses, then evolution will win out and those companies will be stuck with mediocre programmers, put out mediocre products, and die.

russgray• 12 years ago

apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor, but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here

Wait, he open-sourced code he worked on at Amazon, or he open-sourced code he worked on in his own time whilst happening to be employed by Amazon?

If the former, it's hardly surprising the executive was upset.

Edit: Or option 3, he open-sourced code he developed working for you. In which case the executive is being utterly irrational.

Kliment• 12 years ago

I read it as option 3

walshemj6• 12 years ago

that not a non compete case that would related to ip the company owns or claims to own

ChiperSoft• 12 years ago

The term "technology" lead me to think that he open sourced code doing the same thing as code he wrote while at Amazon. I've certainly done that before... learned the structure of a system in an employers codebase and then wrote my own version of it.

contextual• 12 years ago

Brilliant reply, thank you. After having read several books on Amazon and many articles, Bezos and co still fascinate me.

jacquesm• 12 years ago

And it sends a strong message to all prospective Amazon engineers as well. Only work for Amazon when you have no other options.

dm2• 12 years ago

It might just be to scare the company and employee. After dealing with Amazon's legal team it might wear management out and they will insist that the employee not divulge any secrets from Amazon.

Otherwise I could easily imagine several meetings led by the hired engineers that are basically titled, "Processes, Methods, Algorithms, and Secrets I learned from Working at Amazon".

I don't condone the behavior at all, sending a legal team after an individual and their new employer for just switching jobs is unnecessary harassment.

Amazon has been going downhill recently. Startups are taking away some of their AWS customers with easier to use interfaces (some people just want a monthly cost for a VPS or cloud intranet).

Their retail site has been cutting corners and the search is inherently flawed because so many of their items are not sold by Amazon but 3rd parties who charge random amounts and there is very little quality control. It shouldn't take over a week to process simple orders and there should be a way to disable the "transferred to local carrier for delivery" because that can delay the order substantially (I've had to drive to the post office to pick up orders before) and their support just tells me that there is not way to change that in the shipping system.

Now is a good time for a competitor such as Wal-Mart to take back a large share of the US online shopping market from Amazon. Even if Wal-Mart just offered 2 day "shipping to the store" that would be great. I could order any item online and they would group the items where I could pick them up at the service department.

jfoster• 12 years ago

eBay Inc tried this a few years ago when Osama Bedier left PayPal for Google's Wallet team. (http://www.wired.com/2011/05/paypal-sues-google-wallet)

I have no idea what the outcome of the case was, but Bedier spent almost 3 years at Google.

atopuzov• 12 years ago

They should take better care of their employees so they have an incentive to stay and not sue them when they find a better job.

sumoward• 12 years ago

Does anyone know how such clauses apply in the EU?

ccozan• 12 years ago

No. They will ofer a "garden leave". This means, you get paid and stay employed as much as the grace period is over. I think the only restriction is not entering the company's premises.

For executives, is not uncommon that they stay one year in the "garden leave", having all the perks too.

When I left Autonomy, I had such a "garden leave" for 3 months. I stayed at home and received normal salary. Was nice, but boring.

logicalgator• 12 years ago

TLDR of my comment: always ask to see employment agreements you'll have to sign before accepting an offer and resigning from your (now current) company, otherwise you may not know what you'll be expected to sign until your first day.

In response to several comments stating or implying that you can simply not sign or negotiate a non-compete, I agree, but I think it's worth pointing out that, at least in my experience with several (East Coast) companies (I have no experience with Amazon), none of them sends you a copy of their non-compete with your offer letter. What I have always seen happen, instead, is that after you've fully resigned your previous employer and show up for your first day of work at the new company, HR hands you a stack of 100-200+ pages of employee handbook, travel policy, IT policy, etc., and various employment agreements, requiring you to sign all the documents before you can start working. Buried in there may be a non-compete, potentially disguised as another type of agreement. Yes, you're free to read them all (and you should), and you're free to reject them. But if you reject them you're rejecting the job, and now you're stuck with no income until you find another job. Admittedly I think that's better than agreeing to a bad non-compete which could last a lot longer than the time to find a new job, but it's not an easy thing to do.

I strongly recommend what I do now: after receiving and before accepting an offer even verbally, request to see all employment agreements that I'll have to sign upon starting with a new company. All have been fine with sending them to me (and if not I would immediately reject), but I would not have known about them and had time to review them if I hadn't asked in advance.

One company I interviewed with years ago, which had a terribly restrictive non-compete that I rejected, took the attitude that: 1. I had nothing to worry about because they said verbally they'd never enforce it. 2. I had to sign it anyway because everybody has to sign it, no exceptions (but their verbal assurance of non-enforcement should be good enough for me). 3. They questioned my integrity and belittled my concern because (in their words) I was planning to leave the company before I'd even started. Glad I avoided that company - with that attitude, probably would have been a terrible place to work. Back then (unlike today) I'm not sure I would have had the self-confidence to fight that fight on my first day.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

1. I had nothing to worry about because they said verbally they'd never enforce it. 2. I had to sign it anyway because everybody has to sign it, no exceptions (but their verbal assurance of non-enforcement should be good enough for me)

First, I feel your pain here, word for word. I didn't have the same experience as you did in clause 3, but clause 1 and 2 were exactly as I've experienced.

I'd like to say this means we were dealing with the same company but I know we probably weren't.

Second, IANAL, but there is a difference in case-law between making someone sign a non-compete as part of a job offer, and having someone sign a non-compete as part of continuing employment. I'd try to argue that making you sign an agreement on your first day counts in the latter class. But IANAL.

Also, dropping an IP agreement on someone after they quit their old job is unconscionable.

bryanlarsen• 12 years ago

As you mentioned, this should be done before you accept the offer, but whether you do it before or after accepting the offer, I recommend sending back an amended non-compete rather than rejecting outright. Treat the non-compete or any other agreement as a negotiation in good faith, and so will many companies.

Amazon sues employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-competes

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