Doesn't even have to be a surprise. Pretty much startup employment agreement in existence gives the company ("at the board's sole discretion") the right to repurchase your shares upon termination of employment. OpenAI's PPUs are worth $0 until they become profitable. Guess which right they'll choose to exercise if you don't sign the NDA?

I don't think rght to repurchase is routine. It was a scandal a few years ago when it turned out that Skype did that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/2018/01/10/startup...

Who would accept shares as valuable if the contract said they can be repurchased from you at a price of 0$? This can't be it.

You are thinking of going up against an entity worth billions of dollars and somehow winning? That doesn't happen outside of movies. You'll accept whatever they decide, or end up like those Boeing whistleblowers if you make yourself enough of a nuisance.

It can. There are many ways to make the number go to zero.

How do you know there isn't a very clear term in the employment agreement stating that upon termination you'll be asked to sign an NDA on these terms?

Unless the terms of the NDA are provided upfront, that sounds sketch AF.

"I agree to follow unspecified terms in perpetuity, or return the pay I already earned" doesn't vibe with labor laws.

And if those NDA terms were already in the contract, there would be no need to sign them upon exit.

> And if those NDA terms were already in the contract, there would be no need to sign them upon exit.

If the NDA terms were agreed in an employment contract they would no longer be valid upon termination of that contract.

Plenty of contracts have survivorship clauses. In particular, non-disclosure clauses and IP rights are the ones to most commonly survive termination.

One particularly sus term in my employment agreement is that I adhere to all corporate policies. Guess how many of those there are, how often they're updated, and if I've ever read them!

Why not just get it signed then? Your signing to agree to sign later?