The non-compete agreement. When people ponder the reasons for Silicon Valley’s surge as a startup haven—often leaving New England licking its wounds, as it did after student venture Facebook’s departure for Palo Alto, for example—they often point to the persistence of this little clause in many New England-area employment agreements as a major contributor.
The clauses are meant to prevent a company’s ex-employees from starting similar businesses that could undermine it in the marketplace. In California, courts have held that they’re unenforceable. In Massachusetts, they’re still quite common—and there’s widespread agreement that they hold back entpreneurship. Yet many big companies favor the clauses, and years of lobbying to have them outlawed in the state have come to naught.
