zlacker

>>pg_123+(OP)
Quant firms at least are one of the few places where noncompetes can make sense. It's an extremely IP sensitive industry with stupendously high pay where the employee is going to someone probably competing very directly with you, for the same/similar opportunities. Actual code + NDAs banning literal reimplementations of stuff aren't that valuable, the knowledge and ideas will stay in the head of the employees.

The two main issues I have with them are that firms tend to give them to just about everybody (instead of just to folks working very directly with real IP), and they only pay base salary, not something closer to actual total compensation (often multiples of the base pay).

Having said that, the quant firm is relatively unimportant and not a good reason to prevent a total noncompete law. It's probably better to just ban them then try and make allowances that aren't full of loopholes.

>>vgathe+Cg
Why does it make sense. Pay employees for their work and they’ll stick around.

>>gmerc+ni
To your point, it's ironic that firms who push a free market ethos don't actually want to compete. Instead, they want a thumb on the scale that tilts the advantages in their direction.

Welcome to Crony Capitalism (which should not be confused with traditional capitalism).

>>chiefa+Yi
The absence of "traditional capitalism" from history makes it really hard not to confuse it with "crony capitalism".

Perhaps you mean liberalism, as an ideology of capitalism.

>>js8+0l
Perhaps. But, for example, we didn't always have The Fed. We didn't always have WS. We didn't always have "too big to fail". We didn't always have taxpayer financed bailouts. We didn't always have a top heavy (Fed) government (that has more influence than it has common economic sense).

At yet all those entities verbally champion "free markets" and "capitalism being a superior economic paradigm", Etc. Minds get lulled into the repetition of the words and stop checking the action. Reminders to turn on your BS detectors add some balance. Not much, but some.

Fwiw, I'm speaking freely and in broad strokes. If liberalism would be a better word then sure, whatever helps cut through the BS. Thanks.