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Comment by obeattie | Hacker News Reader

"We currently depend on the continued services and performance of our key personnel, including Benjamin Silbermann and others. Mr. Silbermann’s employment, and the employment of our other key personnel, is at will, which means they may resign or be terminated for any reason at any time."

Genuine question: is it normal for the CEO of a company in the US to have no notice period?

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To be more accurate California is an at will state (for everybody: low level employees and CEO's) and non-compete are illegal. Other states are different. It exists to protect the interests of employees. The flipside is if you do resign you don't have to wait 2 months before you leave. It is good practice though to give at least a two week notice.

My understanding was that in At-will states, an employer-employee relationship could be terminated without reason or notice unless there is a contract in place that says otherwise. My (naïve) presumption was that companies would want to put these kinds of contracts in place for their senior leadership.

Those contracts are not enforceable. I guarantee you a win 100% of the time in California.

There are several exceptions:

1) you are the CEO or a top exec in a VERY large company. In that case your personal lawyers are involved in the negotiation of the contract, and it is assumed that you know what you are doing. But even in those rare cases, the law in on your side. 2) a non-compete COULD be part of the sale of your company (I wrote YOUR company, you own it, and your are not merely an employee, even senior employee).

Don't confuse that with the IP rights you give up to the company (legales like like we own EVERYTHING you have created or will create). You can still quit tomorrow with no notice given and work for whomever you feel like. Don’t use that IP, and don’t take ANYTHING with you (no files, no customers lists, no lines of code, no presentations, no emails). Then you are fine.

by default every employee in the US is "at-will" and can quit or be fired at any time unless they have a contract or are in union which has a contract.

That's standard language.

And no non compete? CEO's are one of the few employees where a non compete could be enforceable.

non-competes are illegal in California.

Yes, very. That's boilerplate.

Maybe for a CEO I’d understand but being a regular employee and knowing that you could be out of a job and pay at any time, for any arbitrary reason or no reason at all, without being able to do anything about it seems like such a shaky foundation to build your life on...

That's pretty standard for the United States. On the flipside, it means the employer isn't required to keep employing you no matter what. Most unions will negotiate it (this is why Police go on paid suspensions instead of being fired, it's part of their CBA), but the vast majority of us aren't members of a union. Furthermore if you're terminated without cause, you're eligible for unemployment.

In practice companies don't fire people left and right, and people don't live in constant fear of being terminated if they're providing value to their employer, or their employer isn't toxic.

"people don't live in constant fear of being terminated if they're providing value to their employer,"

That has almost nothing to do with being laid off or not. Most layoffs kill whole departments or divisions and the contribution of the little guy matters not a single bit.

I knew that – for better or worse – this is common for many employees in the US, but had always assumed that companies would want more security with their senior leadership. Thanks; TIL.

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