The non-compete is still horrible and still severely limits future career opportunities. Overstock conveniently brings the non-compete up for the first time on the first day of work after you've uprooted your life, relocated, and turned down other job offers but before they give you access to walk through any doors by yourself. The same non-compete is used for both experienced employees in key roles and new hires fresh out of college.
Since the new non-compete was not made available when it was announced, and the Senior Vice President - Technology / CTO took a determined stance to not make it available until either a position title change occurs or a new bonus is given, here's how the CTO phrased the non-compete changes. These are his exact words as best as I can remember. "We've had a lot of complaints about the non-compete and so sat down with our lawyers to update it. We decided the clause basically limiting employees from working for anyone with a website was overly broad since basically everyone has a website now." He continued "So we've changed that part to say anyone with a transactional website."
The updated non-compete wording still limit's everything from a mom and pop shop which competes with Overstock because they sell t-shirts on the internet and so does Overstock, to Microsoft because Microsoft sells tablets on their website and so does Overstock. Don't forget Google because Google sells advertising space and Android phones on their website and so does Overstock. Combine that with Overstock's unpredictable business models which have ranged from selling vacation packages, to insurance, to cars, to homes, in addition to overstocked merchandise and the scope grows even more.
Essentially if Overstock chooses to come after you, the non-compete wording forces you or your new employer to take the matter to court, in Utah, or quit your new employer and find another job. Overstock has done this in the past for relatively low level people. Over the last few years the non-compete has been frequently updated to restrict more and more future employment options and has become required for more and more people. The CTO's opinion that this latest update removed the overly broad scope and his determined stance to keep the exact new non-compete wording private until they want you to sign it on the spot scares me.
As part of the same meeting it was announced that Overstock will work to outsource 15-20% of it's relatively small development and test staff of around 150. Luckily these will all be new hires, at least for now. The cover story is they want to be able to fire 15-20% of the development staff on a whim. The CTO cited a previous year this happened and basically said better outsourced workers than you.
