I think it's OK for highly compensated employees and employers to have these agreements, as long as the power balance is relatively equitable in the beginning.

I think it's OK for highly compensated employees and employers to have these agreements, as long as the power balance is relatively equitable in the beginning. It allows a certain level of employer investment with assurances that those investments wont immediately be used to boost their competitors and presumably the employee is able to extract some concessions from the employer for signing it. In cases where it's literally just a soulless corporate chain bullying employees into being serfs it's completely immoral.