Amazon Sues After Ex-Worker Takes Google Job

vortex2.71 (802986) writes Amazon is suing a former employee of its cloud services division after he took a similar position at Google. The interesting aspect of the lawsuit is that Google is choosing to vigorously defend the lawsuit, so this is a case of Goliath vs. Goliath rather than David vs. Goliath. According to court documents, Zoltan Szabadi left a business-development position at Amazon Web Services for Google's Cloud Platform division. Szabadi's lawyer responded by contending that, while Szabadi did sign a non-compete agreement, he would only use his general knowledge and skills at Google and would not use any confidential information he had access to at Amazon. He also believes Amazon's confidentiality and non-compete agreements are an unlawful business practice.

Comments

Non-compete agreements are BS.

[Kenja]

But it is impossible to "not use any confidential information he had access to" without surgery. It's in your brain, you will use it if the situation arises.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[ScentCone]

Just scrawl 'I don't agree' on the signature line. Let them enforce that.

And they would scrawl "you can't cash this" on the paycheck you won't be getting, since signing your employment contract in good faith is, you know, part of setting things up so they'll give you money.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[Anonymous Coward]

If what they want is loyalty, they should pay well enough for it to keep their staff - and that goes for everyone, including the US Government.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[i kan reed]

Non-compete is just one of the many ways in which the US completely an utterly lacks the free market we love to blab about.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[Anonymous Coward]

For little people. For big people it's business 101.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[lgw]

Slavery (and indentured servitude) is not the condition of working without being paid, but the condition of having no choice of employer. A contract that amounts to indentured servitude is an illegal contract. How much you think anon-compete looks like indentured servitude is the matter in dispute - if you can't do X, but you can still flip burgers, does that count?

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[TheRaven64]

A contract does not require a signature, it requires a meeting of minds. A signature is one way of demonstrating this. Accepting the pay cheque and showing up for work is another.

Re: Non-compete agreements are BS.

[RobotRunAmok]

I talk to both HR drones and IT drones all the time, at various companies. And although, unlike you, I am hesitant to generalize, the HR people seem to have far and away more real world smarts and overall life-coping competence than their coding and server-jockeying colleagues.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[Triklyn]

that's stupid, and you're stupid for saying it. you've broadened the scope of "duress" to be meaningless.

Re: Non-compete agreements are BS.

[HornWumpus]

You should post that someplace where people don't deal with HR idiots on a daily basis. We _all_ know you are full of shit.

Re:Non-compete agreements are BS.

[trytoguess]

As my pappy would say, there's a different between smart and diligent. Being able to calculate pi while masturbating? That's smart. Reading a contract cause you're concerned there might be dubious clauses? That's diligent.