Google DeepMind Has a Weapon in the AI Talent Wars: Aggressive Noncompete Rules (businessinsider.com) 56
The battle for AI talent is so hot that Google would rather give some employees a paid one-year vacation than let them work for a competitor. From a report: Some Google DeepMind staff in the UK are subject to noncompete agreements that prevent them from working for a competitor for up to 12 months after they finish work at Google, according to four former employees with direct knowledge of the matter who asked to remain anonymous because they were not permitted to share these details with the press.
Aggressive noncompetes are one tool tech companies wield to retain a competitive edge in the AI wars, which show no sign of slowing down as companies launch new bleeding-edge models and products at a rapid clip. When an employee signs one, they agree not to work for a competing company for a certain period of time. Google DeepMind has put some employees with a noncompete on extended garden leave. These employees are still paid by DeepMind but no longer work for it for the duration of the noncompete agreement.
Several factors, including a DeepMind employee's seniority and how critical their work is to the company, determine the length of noncompete clauses, those people said. Two of the former staffers said six-month noncompetes are common among DeepMind employees, including for individual contributors working on Google's Gemini AI models. There have been cases where more senior researchers have received yearlong stipulations, they said.
Aggressive noncompetes are one tool tech companies wield to retain a competitive edge in the AI wars, which show no sign of slowing down as companies launch new bleeding-edge models and products at a rapid clip. When an employee signs one, they agree not to work for a competing company for a certain period of time. Google DeepMind has put some employees with a noncompete on extended garden leave. These employees are still paid by DeepMind but no longer work for it for the duration of the noncompete agreement.
Several factors, including a DeepMind employee's seniority and how critical their work is to the company, determine the length of noncompete clauses, those people said. Two of the former staffers said six-month noncompetes are common among DeepMind employees, including for individual contributors working on Google's Gemini AI models. There have been cases where more senior researchers have received yearlong stipulations, they said.
Good for California (Score:2, Interesting)
You can't enforce those rules here, so workers will just have to look at jobs in CA. So much for the idea of brain drain because we're woke that certain clowns are spewing
Re:Good for California (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they probably can enforce them here, because they continue to pay for the entire period of the non-compete. What makes it illegal is when they demand non-competes without paying for them.
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If they don't have the same responsibilities to those employees that they would if they were genuinely employed, it won't be enforceable here.
If they do, then it's a job, not really a non-compete.
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Re:Good for California (Score:4, Informative)
SB 699 [ca.gov], enacted last year, says that "This bill would establish that any contract that is void under the law described above is unenforceable regardless of where and when the contract was signed. "
So no, if someone in the UK (or somewhere that a non-compete is enforceable) moves to California, that non-compete cannot be enforced in California courts.
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A California court might also co-operate with other courts around the country or the world, for all sorts of reasons. This may have the side effect of helping to enforce the UK court's processes. For example, the foreign offender could be extradited to face justice.
Where you are correct is t
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But it wouldn't be enforced in California courts. It would be enforced in UK courts. Are you suggesting that California courts have jurisdiction over British courts?
The premise above is that the person in question moves to California, where the non-compete is unenforceable. Which is correct. Are you suggesting that a British court has jurisdiction over a California company and a California resident? (And non-competes apparently aren't generally enforceable in the UK anyway.)
Maybe you've been drinking too much cool-aid? ;-)
Maybe you've been sucking too much corporate dick.
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I think he has you here. Google/Alphabet IS a California based company. Fact is that Non-compete clauses have been unenforceable in CA for decades! The only exception is if you are a principal in a company and sell the company. Knew a guy who sold out to Synopsys. He had a 3 year non-compete as part of the sale contract. That is the only exception I'm aware of.
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This seems less as a non-compete, and more as a "we pay you to do nothing". As long as they're paying, you can't work for someone else. That's how most employers are when you are actively employed. They won't let you also work for a competitor.
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Sure. If you're willing to abandon the ability to return to the country (and possibly home) your working/living in, you can evade all kinds of contractual obligations.
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SB 699 [ca.gov], enacted last year, says that "This bill would establish that any contract that is void under the law described above is unenforceable regardless of where and when the contract was signed. "
So no, if someone in the UK (or somewhere that a non-compete is enforceable) moves to California, that non-compete cannot be enforced in California courts.
As a side note, whilst non-compete clauses in the UK are legal and enforceable, they're not common because the conditions that make them reasonable are rather onerous.
A non-compete clause must be reasonable and protect legitimate business interests. Above this they cannot restrict an employees trade (restraint of trade clause) meaning they cannot restrict someone's capability to earn a living, which pretty much makes them null and void in most cases. They're also a case-by-case thing, your average Americ
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Non-competes are void everywhere in the US. What does anything have to do with California? I don't think people in the UK are going to apply for a work visa and move to the US solely to dodge their non-compete agreements. That's almost laughable.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-event... [ftc.gov]
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The responsibility would be: not to compete. Just like in the original job.
You are a bit on thin ice here.
Why actually would one go into a "I have a contract about not compete: and get paid for it, while 'on vacation' job" into a non compete job?
Does not make any sense. I am not allowed to compete in "insert topic", get paid for two years, and seek a job "same topic insert as before" which I should not/can not because of "non compete"?
If your state makes the contract "non enforceable" then the "we pay to ke
Re:Good for California (Score:5, Informative)
No. If it is labeled as a non-compete, then it isn't enforceable in California. See the California Business and Professions Code section 16600.
More likely for California, it would be labeled as "Garden Leave" where the you essentially receive a salary for a year while resting on your laurels.
Even more likely: Google will avoid hiring anyone in any state with strong laws against non-competes. Those states are California, Colorado, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
Distant possibility: Trump et. al will allow non-competes and override any state laws against them [federal preemption]
If you have this kind of talent, ask Google to remove the restriction, and if they don't then work for someone else who doesn't impose such restrictions.
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Even more likely: Google will avoid hiring anyone in any state with strong laws against non-competes. Those states are California, Colorado, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
I seriously doubt that Google will have no employees in their corporate headquarters in Mountain View, California.
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That wont help them. If the person moves to CA, they can work anywhere. Even if they were hired in Minnesota, they go to CA and join Microsoft there, they can’t be held to a non-compete.
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>If you have this kind of talent, ask Google to remove the restriction, and if they don't then work for someone else who doesn't impose such restrictions.
You'll be working for someone who doesn't impose such restricitons.
Lol. You think they are going to bend for one lowly employee? If the position has garden leave then you can be assured you aren't going to argue it away.
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"If you have this kind of talent, ask Google to remove the restriction"
or....
Make 3x what you would elsewhere and deal with it. Non-competes suck, but so do many other aspects of being employed by others. Negotiate what works for you. If you're that talented, you can. And if you can't, maybe you aren't as valuable as you think.
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Now THAT is a noncompete clause I can live with! Where do I sign up!
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Google is a California company. Their corporate headquarters are in Mountain View, and 100% subject to California law.
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Not legal in the UK either (Score:2)
So good luck to google trying to enforce them. Worst they can do is refuse to give references.
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What are you talking about? UK workers aren't going to try and find jobs in California, US.
If they were going to look for a job in the USA, then why would they limit that search to just California? The US FTC declared non-competes as unenforceable and void. That has little to do with CA. They're void everywhere in the US.
So what does being "Woke Clowns" have to do with anything? The UK is notoriously woke where this stuff is happening. I don't see how that could make any kind of argument against being woke.
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I'm pretty sure they were probably using Google cloud services before and then switched to something else.
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YouTube is still $13.99 per month if you don't want to get access shut off for blocking ads.
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I got two warnings and then my ad blocker started working again
Also, you can just use it without logging in, and copy the video URLs and hand them off to the handy dandy downloader.
Paying Google for anything is abuse of self, they shouldn't be allowed to be this big.
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Jackass.
Illegal in WA, CA, others. (Score:5, Interesting)
States like Washington and California have actively made non competes of this kind illegal and so one of the fun things about this is that it's becoming public knowledge that something called garden leave exists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Illegal in WA, CA, others. (Score:4, Interesting)
They dont have to win in court, just make you broke with legal fees. Thats how it works.
In California it's illegal for companies to offer you a non-compete, or to try to enforce one that was previously signed. So you'd just have your attorney move for an injunction barring the enforcement and to order the company to pay your legal fees and any other damages, and the judge would grant the injunction, dismiss the enforcement suit and order the company to pay your lawyer.
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California also has a working SLAPP statute (and class action laws), and a lot of activist lawyers who hate the very existence of megacorporations.
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States like Washington and California have actively made non competes of this kind illegal
Washington does enforce non-competes for laid-off employees if the employee is fully compensated in a lump sum at separation, and also enforces non-competes (without compensation) on employees who leave voluntarily, as long as they make at least $120k and the non-compete is no more than 18 months and was signed at the time of hire. California doesn't enforce them regardless, and has taken the step of making it illegal even to offer a non-compete.
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Do you have the option to refuse the compensation?
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Do you have the option to refuse the compensation?
I don't think so.
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Not all true. This was my entire life for a long time because I did a lot of consulting and contracting in Washington.
In Washington it's actually a lot more complicated than just one law; in Washington state - because of things like the equal opportunity act, The laws on who owns what IP based on ownership of hardware hardware used (The company doesn't always clearly own the IP for your code made as a work product if you own the hardware it was created on, this is why every big tech company in Washington an
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The be fair this is at least the way a noncompete should work--they get full pay (and I assume full benefits) for the period of the noncompete, plus these are only 6-12 months.
the right to make people lie is pretty stupid (Score:1)
In a future civilized society after this barbaric one imminently collapses, hopefully they remember to NOT do shit like this. the right to make people lie is a fucking stupid thing to behold in a democracy.
Re: the right to make people lie is pretty stupid (Score:2)
People can't even remember the 1990's, let alone the 1890's or 1930's.
Humans are pretty dumb and lazy. We're going to neglect any democracy we create once most of us are fed and relatively safe. Capitalism run amuck has been like boiling a frog. It has been so gradual that most of us have no idea we're in a pot.
Saw a similar article -- must have been AI (Score:1)
I saw a similar article, except that it claimed that Google was enforcing non-completes in California (where non-competes are almost entirely void).
It wasn't just a typo, because it explicitly referred to Menlo Park, which would be another hallucination (Google's HQ is down the street from Menlo Park in Mountain View).
Clearly, the other article I read was written by an AI and not checked for accuracy.
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Well, there's more than one Menlo Park, but I suspect that since they are paying the folks, they're still officially employees.
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What a headline (Score:2)
Is this still journalism, businessinsider?
In your face, Google! (Score:1)
Here's what Google's own search engine AI returns when asked about non-compete in the UK:
"In the UK, non-compete clauses are enforceable only if they protect legitimate business interests and are no wider than reasonably necessary, with courts assessing reasonableness based on the employee's role, industry, and the employer's needs.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Legitimate Business Interests:
- To be enforceable, a non-compete clause must be designed to protect legitimate business interests, such as conf
Catch me if you can (Score:2)
Look at the latest articles how Waymo, for instance, is capturing you on video, because you didn't know, or cars, or printers don't respect any semblance of privacy.
Anyone smart enough to be under non compete terms would likely be smart enough to circumvent a non compete.
Can you work at a rival company different role? (Score:1)
kills your AI career (Score:3)
"prevent them from working for a competitor for up to 12 months after they finish work at Google"
"Who wants to sign you for starting in a year?" said one former DeepMind employee. "That's forever in AI."
If you are out of the business and sitting on your hands for a year, even if you are still getting paid the big bucks, your knowhow will be obsolete. Watching from the sidelines will not make you valuable.
like in sport (Score:2)