The crucial part of why non-competes are gross is that they're trying to enforce what you do after someone stopped receiving anything from the past employer. If someone is helping competitors when still working somewhere, or actively taking stuff from their past employer after they've left, then yeah, of course that's dumb and should be punished. But there's no reason a non-compete clause is needed for that!

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paxys 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The companies are based in California, so regular non-competes are irrelevant. This is solely about IP theft.

	▲	saghm 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I was responding to a direct statement by the parent comment about non-competes. If you think they're irrelevant, you should complain to them, not me.
	▲	itopaloglu83 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		That’s the key point, what’s happening here is theft.

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ungreased0675 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Theft of trade secrets and a non-compete are unrelated and separate things.

	▲	nextos 7 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Yes, this is why garden leaves are popular in quant finance. You get paid for about a year to do nothing so that the trade secrets from your firm (trading strategies) expire. That's very different from a non-compete. A non-compete is about your own know-how, not the company's.
	▲	saghm 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Your gripe is with the parent comment then for mentioning them in the first place, not me. I was just responding to their aside.