[JohnTHaller]

> Whilst there is such a thing as domain skill, a noncompete should affect a secretary or assistant minimally in practice, as they generally have a broad, non-domain-specific skillset, unlike the executive they report to.

These aren't what people think of as 'secretaries'. These are highly skilled executive assistants with WAY more domain-specific skills than you're giving them credit for. I have friends that do this for C level executives. Including at $100bn+ companies. A non-compete within a given industry would severely hamstring their future career.

[tekacs]

Ugh, I think this is the curse of Internet comments, where you can never include enough disclaimers.

I knew this (correct) case would be made as I was writing my comment, but thought I could avoid including a sub-clause to deal with this topic.

So yes — I know folks like this too and fully acknowledge the skillset involved. Some of those folks have a deep skillset and yet don’t have any particular knowledge such that a noncompete would make sense to keep them from spreading it.

Per my comment I don’t like noncompetes — but I do think that this is the thinking that was used to define policy around this.

I also do think that there is an exclusion zone, whereby folks are either:

- Non-specific and not affected by this materially.

- Highly skilled and /would/ take material privileged information with them.

- High skilled and /would not/.

I suspect the last category is just elided in the thinking that led to this coming to be.

[ineptech]

At the risk of deflating this highly-charged discussion, I think the reason for the "executive staff" carve-out might be a little more ho-hum: they are often employed via the same contract as the executive they support.

[tekacs]

Yup -- I actually am inclined to agree with my sibling commenter all the way up top.

I don't think the answer here is necessarily all that clever -- charged conversation notwithstanding, I just wanted to get at the fact that it's likely /not a conspiracy/.

I would love to deflate this mess of a subthread. :)

[anamax]

> At the risk of deflating this highly-charged discussion, I think the reason for the "executive staff" carve-out might be a little more ho-hum: they are often employed via the same contract as the executive they support.

Huh? The VP of Engineering has a hefty stock plan, a guaranteed bonus, and a three-year contract. Do you really think that her secretary has anything comparable? Heck, her secretary doesn't even have a three-year contract.

[JohnTHaller]

Among my friends I have talked to about this previously, they do not.

[filmgirlcw]

It depends on the executive contract. Some of them will offer a guaranteed number of support staff of the executive’s choice (now whether the admin has to negotiate a separate contract with the exec, I don’t know) and you’ll often see admins move along with the exec from job to job.

But I don’t know if that is why the carve-out is there or not. I doubt it, but some exec contracts absolutely allow for a guaranteed support staff of the exec’s choosing.

[anamax]

An exec's guarantee of support staff, even the support staff of her choosing, doesn't guarantee the support staff anything.

[ineptech]

I said "employed via the same contract," not "a comparable contract." Meaning, the VP's hiring contract says "you get $X/yr to hire some staff".

[anamax]

The VP's contract is irrelevant when we're talking about staff.

The VP's contract reasonably protects the VP from the consequences of a non-compete. The VP's staff has no such protection.

[ineptech]

> The VP's contract is irrelevant when we're talking about staff.

No it's not. If the VP's contract says "The company will hire an assistant for you" then the assistant negotiates with HR for their salary like a regular employee. If the VP's contract says "You get $100K/yr to hire an assistant" then the assistant can't get a raise until the VP's contract changes.

> The VP's contract reasonably protects the VP from the consequences of a non-compete.

It might, or it might not. Contracts do whatever they say they do. If the contract says "You and your staff can't work for any of our competitors unless it's a leap year and you say Pretty Please" then that's what it says.

More generally, above a certain level, executives are more like a small agency than a single person. If you hire Tim Cook to be the next CEO of your startup, he's going to bring his current assistant(s) with him, he's not just going to inherit whoever the old CEO's assistant was.