| I think its time to stop signing NDAs on job interviews too. (Is anyone still doing this?) I guessed that was what the article was about before I read it. The article is good, and I agree with all the points. But I'll go further. Realistically if there's some piece of information that needs to be kept secret, and that piece of information, if released, would significantly damage your business, there's no way a startup is going to reveal that information in an interview with a job candidate. The reason is, even with and NDA, the info getting out would do the damage long before they might be able to enforce the NDA. Thus NDAs are essentially pointless on Job interviews. Back in the last decade, when I was still willing to work for others for a salary, I would refuse to sign NDAs that had terms that were too onerous (like many companies had a combo NDA & IP assignment, that they'd ask me to sign on interviews! Others had terms in the NDA subjecting me to potential audits, including inspection of my living space, for the next 12 months!) I don't know what common practice out there is, but its time for job seekers to not sign NDAs. In fact, I think being asked to sign an NDA, is a good sign that the people running the company are either of the "idea is %90" type or doing it just out of tradition. I think most of the NDAs I was asked to sign on interviews were out of tradition-- somebody back in the day, made off with a customer list, so now its "best practices" to have candidates sign and NDA. But this is a big clue itself: It tells you management just mindlessly follows "Best practices" without thinking about them and applying them intelligently. That tells you something about how... nimble... management is going to be (and whether they're ready to run a startup.) Many of the startups that failed in my experience-- second only to fights between the cofounders and bad VC advice-- failed because they were started by people who'd gotten lucky and thought that meant they were brilliant. (EG: worked at Microsoft or Amazon at the right time and made a lot from their options, but didn't really actually know much about running a business.) I remember, a decade ago, having such a brilliant idea that I asked my friends to sign these stupid NDAs I'd drawn up before they got the privilege of "Advising" me on it. It was absurd. I think I realized it almost right after, and I stopped doing that. Since then, I just don't talk about what I'm doing-- mostly because, I'd rather do something, then talk about it, and if you've not shipped it feels like bragging about what you're gonna do-- we all know the guy whose "gonna do" this thing that's so great. Don't want to be that guy. If your business or startup is worth working for, it doesn't need candidates to sign NDAs. Asking them to implies you're just an idea. |