

Ask HN: Employee disclosures and policies - TossOut

Not sure this fits within the typical HN topics. I'm hoping to get some intelligent insight while maintaining anonymity. It's hard to turn anywhere other than HN for that. I hope you don't mind.<p>I have a firm offer from a publicly traded, Fortune 100 company. A lot of my friends are surprised that I'm even considering, but my play is to learn about operations at a company of that size, then 2, 3 or 5 years from now jump out. I don't anticipate doing anything directly competitive, but I'm also being adamant about reviewing their employee handbook and policies to check for limiting factors. As I've said to a few people, I'm really interested in dating, but I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to them for a lifetime. I've been scared off by other friends who have made the mistake of not checking and inadvertently surrendering future opportunities.<p>The company recently replied that they're unable to release the policies and handbook due to proprietary and confidential concerns; only employees are authorized to receive a copy of it. They have offered to answer any specific questions, but I'm not convinced that will resolve my concern. If I don't ask a question precisely the right way, they're not obligated to infer my intent.<p>Am I getting cold feet or do I have a valid concern? If you're a founder, what are your policies? Do you release this information upon request, or would you become concerned about the candidate? Job seekers, do you ask questions about non compete, confidentiality, and other disclosures prior to accepting an offer?
======
euroclydon
If it's a fortune 100 company, and you're in a sales, marketing, or R&D role,
expect a very restricting (to the point of being unenforceable in many states)
set of agreements that you will be required to sign. You can try the 'ol
strike-through trick or just fail to sign them, forget, or whatever, but I
wouldn't count on that working at all.

But seriously, you're going to work for a company for up to five years, which
is an eternity by the way, and then, once you've gained knowledge about their
business, perhaps start something that competes? This happens every day, and
the language in the documents you sign will have litte bearing on your chances
at success in this yet-to-be-materialized future venture.

[Edit, adding more]

Let's say you work for this company for a couple of years, and think of a way
or a technology that can compete with them, and that you're savvy enough to
raise money to build and sell it, or otherwise find yourself on the radar
screen of your former employeer. This is a huge "if", but if you do, they may
come after you.

Why not focus your energies on finding a way to help your employeer in a way
that they can't help themselves and then implement a product or service and
recruit your former employeer as your first customer? This is a much less
confrontational way to go, and actually, you'll find it's easier than
competing with them.

Talk to people who have done this -- they're everywhere. You'll likely meet
them, as venders, in your new job. Learn how to do what they did.

~~~
TossOut
Thanks for the response. Does it seem strange that they're being bullish about
letting me review these policies prior to accepting? They've sent me all the
benefit information: vacation, medical and dental, stock, etc. I feel like
this last piece of information is equally as important when evaluating the
offer.

As an analogy, the company I previously worked for did application
development. It was their policy to release all source as part of the project,
but that did not imply that we would never engage on a similar project in the
future. After we priced, scoped, built and deployed a project, a client came
back to us and requested we sign a non-compete and decline to work on any
projects related to it. We replied that we would have been happy to, but would
have significantly impacted the cost of the original project (eg, what is the
cost of future revenues that we'd have to miss). The conversation stopped
there.

To rephrase my additional question, is it unusual to ask to review policies
related to confidentiality, non compete, non disclosure, non solicitation and
other employee covenants?

~~~
euroclydon
You're correct that the policies are an important piece of information, but
where you're mistaken is thinking there's a chance in hell they will be
favorable to you. You'll find this to be universally true among companies of
this size.

If you have pre-existing IP, there will be a method to document it laid out in
the policies. If you develop unrelated IP completely in your spare time and
using your own resources while employed there, there _may_ be language in
their policies that describe an avenue to lay claim to this IP.

