It’s critical to reduce the length of non-competes as the longevity of startup companies decreases, reducing the average job tenure for many startup employees.
During the tech bubble the average job tenures I observed on many resumes decreased dramatically. The trend appears to have continued unabated since then, which is easy to confirm with a little searching on LinkedIn. Here are a couple of typical examples from the resumes of great people I’ve worked with who started out with long tenures in their early careers that shortened dramatically in more recent years:
Engineer:
Position 1: 7 years
Position 2: 2 years
Position 3: 1 year
Position 4: 2 years
Position 5: 1 year
Position 6: 1 year
Position 7: 4 years
Position 8: 2 years
Position 9: 1 year
VP Engineering:
Position 1: 5 years
Position 2: 2 years
Position 3: 1 year
Position 4: 3 years
Position 5: 1 year
Position 6: 3 years
In Massachusetts even six-month non-competes could leave people with two-year average tenures out of work or underemployed for at least a quarter of their career. This encourages college graduates who want to work for startups to leave Massachusetts for California where non-completes aren’t enforceable.
Very good point and well made.
There might be a way to incorporate this thought in legislation with some kind of mechanism. We will keep the thought in mind. But as written, the legislation will be an improvement — six months is better than the current one or more years.