[bitwize]

Noncompetes are illegal in at least one state (California), difficult to enforce elsewhere, and usually severely limited in scope. For example if you worked for Uber, you could be barred from starting your own taxi or rideshare app on the side, but not from starting a healthcare services business or game studio.

I did have one company try to get me to sign a 10-year noncompete, upon pain of having to pay twice the market cap of the competing company. I am not shitting you. I tried pointing out why this was outrageous and unenforceable (what if I worked for PayPal?!) and they didn't seem to get it. So I told them to gtfo.