The first thing -- and this is critical -- is understand that you could be held to each and every clause of the agreement you sign.  So don&#x27;t sign anything that you don&#x27;t want to do, unless you&#x27;re down to I need a job or I can&#x27;t eat levels of desperation.<p>Your leverage is you can decline the offer.<p>I had, btw, a former google manager who got funded by a16z slip a clause into an offer agreement that said if I conducted any business on my personal media device (ie phone), they had the unlimited right to search it on demand.  Obviously there was no way I&#x27;d agree to that, so putting work gmail on my phone was right out.  But what if texting me on the weekend meant conducting business?  They&#x27;d also left in language backdating the employment agreement (presumably because it was an update for existing employees), so as written it would have extended to before our phone screen... which I took on my cell phone.  I don&#x27;t work for them because the ceo said his lawyer insisted on it, I responded that the lawyer works for the ceo (not the other way around), he said blah blah blah, I told him he was a liar.  The clause was on him and if he wouldn&#x27;t forgo it he should at least have had the integrity to stand up and say I want this.  And that was that.<p>I&#x27;ve also lost a job in nyc at the written offer stage because new company&#x27;s counsel determined it would have violated my noncompete with old employer.  These aren&#x27;t empty words you&#x27;re signing.  CA mostly bans them and it&#x27;s really important to employees, because right or wrong, you really don&#x27;t want to get caught in the middle of a pissing match with people who have company-funded lawyers.