Wouldn't CA companies/employees not get pushed to sign unenforceable non-competes (because they're in CA, so it doesn't help the employer any, so they don't push for it in contracts)? So if you're poaching from CA anyhow...
Non-competes are totally unenforceable in CA as a condition of employment. If you sell your startup to an acquirer, the contract can include a non-compete subject to fairly strict conditions of reasonableness.
afaik (talk to your lawyer when changing jobs! they're really not that expensive!) non-competes are unenforceable in the vast majority of cases in CA. There may be limited exceptions for executives. There is even a question if asking for it invalidates the entire employee agreement.
Are you sure "non-competes are unenforceable in California" generally refers to a different form where you agree to not work for competitors after stopping employment at a given company. If you use company equipment or company time, your work is subject to assignment to the company; I don't know how enforceable the clauses about competing fields with the company are, but usually there's a form to declare when you join (claim widely).
I would be careful trying too hard to fit anything at all through that loophole though, as I'm pretty sure in California, companies that push employees to sign non-compete agreements that are deemed unenforceable (which is objectively most non-competes in California), may be subject to statutory damages and may wind up getting summarily owned in the countersuit.
I have no source for this and I am not a lawyer (but nobody knows you're a dog on the internet...) – if anyone knows more about this than I do, I'll happily read and be glad to learn something, but this is a subject I've read a bit about.
OK, actually, it wasn't that hard to find a citation:
You still have strong protections as an employer against "unfair competition" but you are better off not trying to pass any non-compete agreement to your employees, as you may be on the hook for damages if it's determined that your NCA is unenforceable, so you misled the employee(s) who have signed it.
California law is (and has always been) very favorable to employees, compared to other states.
I had heard similar - that if you go to CA, you have to pre-emptively sue to get out of it.
Are non-competes enforced often enough that this is an issue?
I've only heard of a few cases, and these were notorious hedge funds, or flagrant post-move poaching of employees. (Not just "I'm gone" but "I'm gone and taking my team even though I signed something that said I wouldn't.")
I am not sure the enforceability of non-competes in California. They're certainly not for ordinary workers but I know that it is often enforceable in other places for executives even when deemed not for workers.
I'd be surprised if their CA employment agreements even have the non-compete in them, and any halfway-competent lawyer will be able to redline that portion as un-enforceable. This is a bedrock rule in CA employment. If it had any enforceability at all, we would know.
Sure. Sorry if it wasn't clear, but we were talking about offers from Silicon Valley companies for jobs in California. Even if they put a non-compete into the contract, it is unenforceable.
There are situations in which non-competes are enforceable in CA, just not for regular employees. For instance, if you sell a company you own in part or whole, a non-compete with the acquirer is enforceable.
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