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
Importantly, even if noncompetes aren't enforced, trade secrets can still be grounds for litigation against a former employee. They can't just go from one employer to another and take all the secret sauce recipes with them.

>>bumby+1Y1
Based on what? I honestly don’t know and most comments seem to be assuming that’s not the case.

And also in some ventures it might be pretty hard to litigate when everything is done behind closed doors. How would you know if a rival trading firm is using an algorithm influenced by yours or not?