Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I think non-competes should be allowed in certain situations. When I sold a tech startup I founded to a F500 tech c

Maybe this will be an unpopular opinion, but I think non-competes should be allowed in certain situations. When I sold a tech startup I founded to a F500 tech company, the acquirer separately asked if I'd be willing to sell them a personal non-compete agreement. I retained my own personal lawyers who negotiated on my behalf separately from the startup acquisition (which included my existing employment contract with the startup). Since this was a separate agreement with me personally about me selling my option to do or not do something in the future, the board of the startup wasn't a party to the negotiation (although they were aware the acquirer had requested this and I'd agreed to negotiate). I did decide to sell my future personal rights for a limited number of years and I kept all the proceeds from that separate agreement. This turned out to be quite lucrative for me. Frankly, I really didn't want to compete with the acquirer anyway so it was literally a 'no-cost' thing for me to agree to. The acquirer, the startup and I all ended up being happy. To the extent banning all non-competes would have prevented me from making that personal agreement, I think it's a bad idea. I own the rights to my own future behavior and I should be able to keep, sell or give away those rights as I wish. At the same time, I also think non-compete agreements should not be allowed to just be automatically bundled into the terms of an employment agreement. Non-competes should be optional for all parties and negotiated separately from employment agreements. I'd also be fine with a limit on the percentage of employees a company can have non-competes with and requiring that any non-compete cost the company a significant amount of additional money compared to that employees base compensation.