https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/26/skypes-worthless-employee-...
Was there any follow up to this? I did some quick searches but couldn’t find anything.
I did (sadly) find this video of Ben Horowitz defending the practice:
It was very obfuscated, and it was buried deep in thousands of words, but that's a big obvious red flag even if the legalese is impenetrable.
If you ever notice a paragraph like that, which begins with some words like "If, in connection with the termination of a Participant’s Employment..."
Don't sign it. Understand it, or find a lawyer who can.
The very scary part is "termination of employment", because that's something out of your control, so you must assume it could be used to take advantage of you.
This is an "IF .. THEN" statement where you have no control of the "IF" clause. So you'd best figure out the "THEN" part before agreeing to it.
There are also laws around termination of employment in general so I think that this would be easily rebutted in Court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_Contract_Terms_Act_1977
nb: Not a lawyer by any stretch of the imagination