A noncompete is not about protecting secrets, but about preventing employees and former employees from competing "unfairly". The nondisclosure provision of the

A noncompete is not about protecting secrets, but about preventing employees and former employees from competing "unfairly". The nondisclosure provision of the employee covenants package is what restricts disclosure of secrets. There are also laws that restrict the misappropriation of trade secrets. These separate issues and related legal claims get confused a lot, b/c in employment litigation the claims are often brought at the same time. And of course in CA, employers are not allowed to include certain types of noncompete restrictions in employee covenants, so they lean more heavily on trade secrets claims even when the underlying issue is one of employee loyalty (a term that makes me kind of nauseous). But legally the contractual noncompete, contractual NDA, and legal trade secrets misappropriation claims are separate issues. I would also point out that if you've ever worked for a large corporation, you would know intuitively that most big boy companies have employees sign extremely punitive and one-sided restrictive covenants. Startups actually tend to place less value on contractually restricting employees, and the mindset of startup entrepreneurs can be less focused on protecting trade secrets / more on execution. (The IP assignment portion of the covenants package is, however, just as important to startups.)