[ghaff]

>The tech industry in Mass us there because of the universities. It doesn't have to do with non competition agreements.

That's pretty much my point. The presence of non-competes did not prevent the development of a tech industry in MA. And, while VC funding is about 20% of CA's, MA+NY+CA have far more VC than any other states--and NY and MA together have more than half of CAs funding.

Those two states collectively also have a lot of different kinds of "tech" that are far less represented in CA such as fintech and biotech/pharma.

[MAGZine]

i think the point GP is making is that Mass's tech sector might be actively hindered because of non-competes, and that without the universities, who knows if it would exist at all.

[ghaff]

Oh, I think it's obvious that, absent a concentration of world-class research universities, MA would not have developed the sort of concentration of technology-oriented companies that it's had over the years.

I'll just add that I'm not sure how common non-competes actually were in the MA computer industry. I certainly never saw one until the company I was with was acquired by EMC in about 2000. What is true is that people tended to stay with companies a long time but I don't have any evidence that non-competes played a big role in that.