Ask HN: Attention and Effort clause in employment contract
I've recently received an offer from a large, well-known technology company. I'm pretty excited about it, but there's one clause in my NDA contract and offer letter that concerns me:
ATTENTION AND EFFORT. During employment, Employee will devote Employee’s entire productive time, ability, attention, and effort to furthering [company]’s best interests and will not (without [company]’s prior written consent) carry on any separate professional or other gainful employment, including self- employment and contract work.
I think this clause is too broad. In an ideal scenario, I'd have the freedom to create technical projects in my spare time that could either make me a small passive income, or grow into something that I could work on full time. It sounds like this clause would prevent me from working on such things.
Is this something that's pretty standard in the industry, and do you think I can negotiate this out of my contract?