[hga]

As long as everyone continues to believe California is some sort of special, magical place

It is when it comes to the enforcement of non-competes. True for the US in general, and a few minutes with Google makes it look like they're not well favored by Canadian courts, which prefer non-solicitation provisions, but non-competes still can be enforceable, and I can speak from harsh experience outside of California that they have a chilling effect without you ever stepping into a courtroom. Killed two neat pieces of/concepts of technology as well.

Non-solicitation can also get nasty, when it includes your former co-workers, and I've gotten the impression that they're also not very enforceable in California, I recall a court case where a salesman was able to take a customer list, which is considered to be a gold standard of enforceability in e.g. Virginia.

Massachusetts has finally started to realize this is crippling them, but the last time I checked wasn't able to muster the political will to make the change. Other locations that say they want to be the next Silicon Valley ... nope, they're not willing to give this up at all.