So if you are against this, you are okay with Coca Cola’s secret to be divulged by any employee to any competitor? If you cannot let companies maintain trade secrets, you may as well close them down.

This implies that any employee at Coca Cola knows and has access to the secret formula, which is of course, not true. And even if it were true, there's a substantial difference between a specific, limited piece of information (such as the recipe for Coca Cola) and broad concepts about operating in an industry.

I work in the Robotics industry. While the algorithm for our path planning would be a trade secret, how path planning is pursued is not. It's a fundamental concept in robotics. To extend the metaphor, it would be as if my company thought that any robotics work that involved path planning would violate their IP, because I did path planning work with them. It's nuanced to be sure, but some companies are very aggressive as to prevent you from having mobility in your career. Sometimes in a genuine effort to protect their IP, but also sometimes to reduce your negotiating power or punish you.

There is a difference between trade secrets and non compete. If you can compete with the company without using trade secrets, like make a drink that people like without using Coca Cola secret, it is fine.

as far as i can tell there are a million sodas that are extremely close to coca cola and coca cola is still doing just fine

why downvote this? I have gone through this route and can vouch this is for a good cause, this conversation may mislead people into believing stealing is okay.