[jhspaybar]

I worked at AWS in Seattle and signed a non-compete that stated what was laid out in the article. Given the things I'd done for Amazon, when it was time to move jobs, it was insinuated that going to Microsoft and working on similar things might be enough to trigger action on the non-compete. While I wasn't interested in going to MS, it was clear that this non-compete was holding my wages down as the company recognized I couldn't easily go elsewhere in the local area. Who knows if it was a bluff or not, but I'm in California now and I don't plan to ever sign a non-compete again.

[jsprogrammer]

Yep, the script should go:

hearty laugh

I will not sign a non-compete agreement.

Show me the money.

[abawany]

In my case, at a "startup" (it isn't) I was offered the non-compete, with extremely nasty and broad language that unfortunately is enforceable in Texas, 3 months after I had been working there. You can imagine the coercive effect of that one: sign this or look like you got fired at 3 months. I was able to negotiate some changes to the broad clauses, which by their own admission were cut-and-pasted from somewhere else, but it made for an appalling experience.

[st3v3r]

Which is why businesses in Texas aren't able to attract talent an investment to the level that those in Silicon Valley are.

[hwstar]

Which may explain why the unemployment rate is so low in Texas. Anybody who already lives there is employed if they want to be, and are employable. Texas has trouble attracting talent from outside of the state for the reason you mentioned, and the backward labor laws in the state.

[pavel_lishin]

> sign this or look like you got fired at 3 months

This seems like something that would be easy to explain during an interview with a different company.