Hacker News Reader

Comment by richardv | Hacker News Reader

Can someone explain how she is able to do this? Set aside the boldness of the move, but if anyone ever should be put on some kind of "garden leave" or some kind of non-compete it would be a person moving from a prominent position in Google to become CEO of Yahoo?

Anyway, that aside. One thing that I hope that comes from this, is bringing some of the same Google-quality-developer-friendly-ethos to Yahoo. Dispite consuming several Yahoo services, I'm always disappointed at how slow they release changes... and if there is one thing that Yahoo needs it's changes..

---------

[] June 16th, "Marrissa Meyer Makes Move to Yahoo",

[] June 20th, Yahoo switches from Bing to Google Search.

[] July 21th, Bing sees enormous drop in QPM.

Coup of the century? Who would of thought, should this actually happen, it would be the best possible outcome. Sacrificing the queen to totally dominate the search market even further.

View on HN

Sure, there isn't really an enforceable non-compete in California, its one of the things that makes Silicon Valley, well Silicon Valley. Second there is a sort of hubris around 'the best revenge is beating them at their own game.' I know of at least two founder/co-founder pairs that split over different ideas about how the vision should go and rather than try to sue the other out of existence, the sense of invulnerability or desire for competition gives rise to a sort of 'bring it on if you got it' mentality.

Even if non-competes are enforceable, sometimes it will make more sense for a company to let an employee go straightaway anyway, rather than having them hang around twiddling their thumbs with no motivation.

True, Where California's statutes affect innovation is in the case where you're trying to raise money. In a state that enforces non-compete agreements you have a harder time if your new venture competes with the place you just left. That is because there is a risk that if you're successful you will be sued by your original employer and shut down. This is not true in California so it is nominally easier to raise funds.

How enforceable are they in other states? I know in the UK there have been a few test cases which seem to have resulted in the interpretation that you can only enforce one if it would otherwise be detrimental to the ex-employer (e.g. starting a new business or taking your contacts with you), otherwise people would find it difficult to move jobs within an industry because you'd almost always be going to a company who could be classed as a competitor.

Non-competes are unenforceable in California. Non-solicitation and non-disclosure agreements are more so.

Non-competes are effectively illegal in California.

If I have a non-compete from employment in another state but then want to relocate to California, does that previous non-compete still apply?

Assuming that you work in California, no, the non-complete clause is rendered unenforceable. (Under Application Group, Inc. v. Hunter Group, Inc., California law trumps a choice of law clause with respect to a non-compete clause.) If you live in CA and commute to Nevada/Oregon/Arizona/some other state, then my understanding is that the law of the state where you actually work would apply.

Disclaimer: IANAL and this post does not constitute legal advice of any kind.

You might want to look at http://lawshucks.com/2009/01/apple-ibm-resolve-noncompete-fi...

Yahoo's deal with Bing was reported to expire in 2019: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2052024/Its-Official-Mi...

> June 16th, "Marrissa Meyer Makes Move to Yahoo"

Psst: It's July.

"Who would've thought"

(Couldn't help myself :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com