zlacker

>>pg_123+(OP)
Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees.

The two main issues I have with them are that firms tend to give them to just about everybody (instead of just to folks working very directly with real IP), and they only pay base salary, not something closer to actual total compensation (often multiples of the base pay).

Having said that, the quant firm is relatively unimportant and not a good reason to prevent a total noncompete law. It's probably better to just ban them then try and make allowances that aren't full of loopholes.

>>vgathe+Cg
> Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities.

Cry me a river. If knowledge of some particular employees worth so much to the quant firms, then they should pay them not to leave accordingly.

>>caskst+w61
Knowledge of a secret does not imply that you provide value.

>>hamand+0f1
Are you speaking towards the employee or towards the quant firm? If the employee has no standing to claim value, then why does the underlying business get to?

>>akira2+eQ1
Because they own the trade secret. For example, they have the legal right to license a trade secret; an employee does not. It's about legal ownership of intellectual property.

As a corollary, you may read a patent and now have the knowledge of a product. But you don't have the same legal right to create and sell that product. That right is protected by the patent owner.

>>bumby+lZ1
That’s not a very good example. A patent is available to read specifically because the discoverer has entered an agreement with the government to share the relevant information in return for exclusive use for a set period of time.

If they had not patented whatever it is they had, anyone could replicate the information/item in question with no penalty.