zlacker

>>apengw+(OP)
If this really was a mistake the easiest way to deal with it would be to release people from their non disparagement agreements that were only signed by leaving employees under the duress of losing their vested equity.

It's really easy to make people whole for this, so whether that happens or not is the difference between the apologies being real or just them just backpedaling because employees got upset.

Edit: Looks like they're doing the right thing here:

> Altman’s initial statement was criticized for doing too little to make things right for former employees, but in an emailed statement, OpenAI told me that “we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparagement obligations” — which goes much further toward fixing their mistake.

>>tedivm+W2
This reads like more than standard restrictions. I hate those like everyone, they are just intended to chill complaints in my opinion with enough question to scare average people without legal expertise (like me, like most devs), just like non-competes used to seemingly primarily be used to discourage looking at other jobs, separate from whether it was enforceable - note the recent FTC decision to end non-competes.

About 5 months ago I had a chance to join a company, their company had what looked like an extreme non-compete to me, you couldn't work for any company for the next two years after leaving if they had been a customer of that company.

I pointed out to them that I wouldn't have been able to join their company if my previous job had that non-compete clause, it seemed excessive. Eventually I was in meetings with a lawyer at the company who told me it's probably not enforceable, don't worry about it, and the FTC is about to end non-competes. I said great, strike it from the contract and I'll sign it right now. He said I can't do that, no one off contracts. So then I said I'm not working there.

>>NotSam+l5
I have worked for multiple startups (Malwarebytes, Vicarious, Rad AI, Explosion AI, Aptible, Kenna Security). Not once have I seen an exit agreement that stated they would steal back my vested equity if I didn't sign. This is definitely not "standard restrictions".

>>tedivm+76
I’ve heard of some pretty aggressive non-competes in finance, but AFAIU (never worked in Connecticut myself), it’s both the carrot and the stick: you get both paid and a stiff contract if you leave with proprietary alpha between the ears.

In tech I’ve never even heard a rumor of something like this.

>>benree+Ls
It’s got a term - “garden leave” and yeah it was prevalent in finance. I say “was” because I think some states are changing laws wrt/ non-competes and this calling this practice into question.

>>whitej+2u
No, you're confusing stuff.

First of all, taking any code with you is theft, and you go to jail, like this poor Goldman Sachs programmer [1]. This will happen even if the code has no alpha.

However, noone can prevent you from taking knowledge (i.e. your memories), so reimplementing alpha elsewhere is fine. Of course, the best alpha is that which cannot simply be replicated, e.g. it depends on proprietary datasets, proprietary hardware (e.g. fast links between exchanges), access to cheap capital, etc.

What hedge funds used to do, is give you lengthy non-competes. 6months for junior staff, 1-2y for traders, 3y+ in case of Renaissance Technologies.

In the US, that's now illegal and un-enforceable. So what hedge funds do now, is lengthy garden(ing) leaves. This means you still work for the company, you still earn a salary, and in some (many? all?) cases also the bonus. But you don't go to the office, you can't access any code, you don't see any trades. The company "moves on" (developes/refines its alpha, including your alpha - alpha you created) and you don't.

These lengthy garden leaves replaced non-competes, so they're now 1y+. AFAIK they are enforceable, just as non-competes while being employed always have been.

[1] https://nypost.com/2018/10/23/ex-goldman-programmer-sentence...