I don't see how this addresses non-competes at all. Also that is already how many sign-on bonuses work. Retention is only tangentially related to non-competes.

I don't see how this addresses non-competes at all. Also that is already how many sign-on bonuses work. Retention is only tangentially related to non-competes. People leave for all sorts of reasons. If a company wants to restrict what they can do after they leave then they can pay them for that supposed value. We'd find out really quickly that most non-competes are bunk. Not to mention that you'd need to add a couple zeroes to that sign-on bonus for it to mean squat to anyone actually working with valuable proprietary information.