TECH NEWS – Google is getting serious about gardening leave to keep professionals from leaving as soon as possible…

Google and companies like it often use non-compete clauses of up to a year in contracts to prevent their employees from moving to competitors. However, the Mountain View giant has put a big twist on the story because of the fierce rivalry in the field of artificial intelligence. According to Business Insider, there are several factors that suggest that a DeepMind employee could earn a full year’s salary while doing nothing.

Anonymous sources revealed that even after employees quit, the advertising giant’s hunger to stay ahead of AI competitors is so great that it is willing to forgo a full year’s salary just to keep those individuals from going to a rival. Of course, this depends on a lot of things (seniority, degree of criticality of the job). Two former Google DeepMind employees who contributed to the company’s Gemini AI models have stated that a 6-month non-compete is considered standard practice. A company spokesperson emphasized that these contracts are in line with market norms and that, given the sensitive work done in the division, these non-compete agreements are designed to protect the company’s legitimate interests.

Another former DeepMind employee said they knew of colleagues who were considering leaving the UK to work in the US state of California just to get out of the non-compete agreement, because they felt it was an abuse of power. Even if employees who are no longer employed by Google continue to receive non-compete bonuses, the problem arises when these people miss out on existing opportunities.

AI startups are not willing to wait 6-12 months for the non-compete to expire, so many may miss out on potentially lucrative career opportunities. One former Google employee noted that non-compete clauses are rampant in the generative AI boom because even a six-month break means that a company at the forefront of an AI model has a significant advantage over a competitor.

Competition is fierce…

Source: WCCFTech