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
The free movement of workers is important to having an efficient economy. The US could do a lot better here; we have bad safety nets, non-competes, "trade-secrets".
When workers move freely and spread trade-secrets, this results in all companies performing better, on average. This is good for everyone except the lazy owners who would lose money to those who perform better.
While the US worries about limiting the free movement of workers, non-competes, and "trade-secrets", China is going to build approximately a billion homes and factories.
If we take the "free" out of "free market", then we're just a market, and far from the most efficient one.
https://www.newsweek.com/what-happened-china-ghost-cities-20...