Companies don’t really need non-competes anymore. Some companies take an extremely broad interpretation of IP confidentiality, where they consider doing any work in the industry during your lifetime an inevitable confidentiality violation. They argue it would be impossible for you to work elsewhere in this industry during your entire career without violating confidentiality with the technical and business instincts you bring to that domain. It doesn’t require conscious violation on your part (they argue).
So beware and read your employment agreement carefully.
More here https://www.promarket.org/2024/02/08/confidentiality-agreeme...
And this is the insane legal doctrine behind this
Meanwhile California bans non-competes, and its GDP is 4th largest in the world if it were a country!
"incumbent friendly" vs "startup friendly"
Some form of a ban on noncompete enforcement in CA has existed since then.
It has long been codified in CA business code 16600, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...