Amazon's non-compete is overly broad and sweeping, and arguably stops anyone from going to a company that even uses cloud technologies. It's written in a way that allows the court to decide just how far it can actually be applied.

As you'll notice from the article, Amazon seems to try to enforce the non-compete every few years, I'm guessing mostly as a message to existing Amazon employees. All I've every seen it do is piss off their employees.

That said, it's totally possible to leave Amazon and move on to an actual competitor. You just have to get lawyers involved. Oracle's Bare Metal Cloud org, that I work for, is made up of roughly 75% ex-aws staff (Amazon has been hemorrhaging staff to Oracle because better pay, and way better working conditions) Lawyers on both sides end up negotiating back and forth and you just end up not working on anything related to what you were working on for AWS.

"Last year, an attempt was made to pass legislation that would have banned non-compete agreements in Washington state, but the bill stalled after business groups, including the Washington Technology Industry Association and the Association of Washington Business, opposed the bill."

This is a perfect encapsulation of political reality in 21st century USA.

Corporations run every aspect of our government, no one else has a meaningful voice.

This is nothing new. Amazon has attempted to enforce their non-compete clauses again and again, often losing but causing financial burdens on the individuals and their new employers. Just another reason why you shouldn't work for Amazon.

I recently changed jobs, and feared my old employer could (but not necessarily would) come after me for non-compete. So, first my new Employer's lawyer looked over everything and said I should be good. Then I hired my own lawyer, to do the same thing (and look over the new employers docs as well) just to cover myself independently. And finally I got in writing that my new employer would cover any legal action pursued by my old employer, just in case.

I would highly recommend the same to anyone else. Absolutely worth the time and money to be safe and covered if you still live / work somewhere they are enforceable.

    “When we looked at their offerings and what Smartsheet does, it is two
    totally different worlds,” said Mader. Using Amazon’s logic, Mader said
    that Smartsheet would be a viewed as a competitor to Amazon Prime because
    both services make people more productive.

Certainly makes Amazon a less desirable employer for me.

Non-competes are tricky: they essentially try to extend trade secret protections to information that people know (which is hard to track), instead of information that's written down (which is easy to track, see Waymo). It seems most people on HN are fine with protecting the latter, but not the former.

In my opinion, a non-compete is something that needs to be separately negotiated and compensated, rather than lumping it into "employment." If you agree to a non-compete, you are paid $X in exchange. If you violate the non-compete, you must pay $X back (and there could be a negotiated multiplier, e.g. $3X). In the absence of agreement, the legal default should be 1:1. If you are paid nothing for a non-compete, it is unenforceable. If you are paid $1, you must pay $1, and so on.

This gives each side an opportunity to value and agree upon the non-compete apart from the job itself. Eventually, most industries would settle on standards.

Non-competes... anti-worker, anti-innovation, anti-freedom, anti-competition, anti-freemarket, anti-independence, anti-entrepreneurial, anti-business (to the ones wanting the skilled labor not the ones the employee left because it is a free employment market) and fully anti-American.

Non competes treat employees like they have no value and are mere slaves or sharecroppers.

I especially like the ones where you have a contract that is for 3-6 months and they want a non-compete for multiple years.

How about this, if a company really wants a non-compete, then make sure they are paid fully above salary, otherwise this is just ownership of skilled labor.

So, random question: if you end up interviewing for Amazon at some point, is it a faux-pas to bring up legal troubles and controversial issues like this while speaking to your interviewers? Is it a bad idea to bring up (for example) this non-compete behavior on the part of the company when negotiating, or should you keep quiet about it?

This seems like the sort of thing that should give someone pause when interviewing with Amazon for a job.

(Pipe)Dream scenario this gets challenged and ends up in the supreme court and non-competes as a practice are ended completely.

Non-competes really should be illegal. I have a friend who is a doctor. He is being forced to sign a non-compete for a 12 mile radius and 2 years.

The irony is that his boss is forcing this on them because she quit her job and brought a bunch of her former coworkers with her in order to start her business, and she doesn't want anyone to do the same to her.

What it means is my friend essentially can't find another job without either:

A. Moving (which is not an easy choice if you have a family) or

B. Subjecting himself to a significantly increased commute

This means his current employer can essentially take advantage of him, as she knows he won't be going anywhere unless the situation becomes truly unbearable.

I've heard nothing but bad things about working at Amazon. They may have an amazing (technically) company and are winning in a lot of ways, but at what cost?

I'm often hit up by Amazon recruiters and I've talked to a few before and got the sense (just by their tone) its not some place I want to be working. They also were deceptive in their recruiting tactics.

That is sort of dumb. I can more understand if he went to Google Cloud or Azure, but this is a very very broad usage of a non-compete clause. They are setting themselves up to lose I think.

Non-competes enforced in this way certainly seem unfair to employees.

But let's talk this through. Assuming we all agree we don't like them, what's the alternative? There seem to exist obvious negative consequences of them not existing in any form.

Wouldn't large companies such as Google, Amazon etc be able to poach any employee of let's say a startup competitor, by simply paying way more, therefore being able to steal ideas, technology, etc?

Or even amongst (well-capitalized) companies of any size: a free-for-all for employees within industries, good or bad? Maybe not so bad actually.. what say you?

Seriously asking because I'm trying to envision the positives and negatives of them being outlawed..

How does Washington state still allow non-compete agreements?

Vendor and now employer lock-in - always innovating!

Federal courts need to set nation wide standards on these unfair practices. It's 2017, but we still allow companies to routinely violate free will - a basic human right!

I remember Gene. We worked together on a demo for the launch of AWS Workspaces, back when I was a Tech Evangelist. Unfortunately, at the last moment we couldn't present it at re:Invent. Can't disclose much else (unless you buy me a good espresso in SF).

I don't like non-compete agreements. They are now far away from their intended purpose. It's wrong to point fingers at a single company, though - the entire sector suffers from this.

I don't understand how non compete deal are even legal. I thought competition was good in the economy...

I mean wouldnt both conservatives and liberals agree?

if you move from washington to a state where non-competes are unenforcable, can amazon still sue you?

Anecdotally, I've heard that non-compete agreements are very hard to be enforced in some states (e.g. NY) due to the burden to prove damages.

> This feels more like a general bullying behavior that you usually see from legacy ‘Day Two’ companies.

Ouch. Going right for the Amazon jugular right there.

at this point, why would anyone work for Amazon?

This is one thing Oklahoma got right, A non-competes is not enforceable except in a couple of narrow instances.

Amazon employees should organize, strike, and get these non competes mass nulled.

Very odd.

So where do we draw the line between relevant experience and non-compete violations?

Hopefully this gets tossed out as overly broad. Or at least Amazon can pay this guy for a few years because their ridiculous agreement makes it impossible for him to get a job.