In my personal experience of 20 years, these clauses are meaningless. I know several people who not only left companies and started their own businesses but als

In my personal experience of 20 years, these clauses are meaningless. I know several people who not only left companies and started their own businesses but also became competitor to their former employers. No one ever got in trouble. In fact, a famous Magento shop in DFW area was started this way. Well there is one lady who got sued because she took her clients with her to a new firm. Didn't start a new company though. But I have noticed that non-doers love to use this as an excuse to do nothing. In every happy hour/lunch, there is at least one person talking about a great idea but they not gonna do it because their evil employer made them sign bunch of documents. You tell these documents hold a little weight in court and they should go talk to a lawyer, they might agree but never will talk to a lawyer. Next happy hour they are complaining about same thing. And if you tell them about your side business, they will do their best to scare you. I work for major tech giant, and openly advertise my business on LinkedIn, resume, carry business cards. No issues so far. I don't talk about it at work or with non-doers.