@matthewstoller One of @thepublicdomain's grad students did a Master's thesis that examined the slow growth of Mass Route 128 companies compared to Silicon Valley tech companies and concluded that noncompetes were the dispostive factor.
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain Her conclusion IIRC, was that California's prohibition on noncompetes meant that people who joined innovative, but dysfunctional, companies early weren't locked out of the field once their employer's dysfunction forced them out.
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain The canonical example, of course, is Shockley Semiconductor, whose founder, William Shockley, won the Nobel Prize for inventing silicon transistors (this is why Silicon Valley is called Silicon Valley and not Gallium Arsenide Valley)
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain Shockley had a mental breakdown and became an ardent eugenicist, touring the country advocating for mandatory sterilizations for "inferior" people. He spent his Nobel money on cash bounties for women who underwent voluntary sterilization ($100 for every IQ point under 100)
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain Shockley grew paranoid and bitter at work, wiretapping his wife, children and employees. Eventually, his eight top employees, a group of brilliant Hungarian scientists, quit and founded a rival company.
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain @intel If noncompetes had been enforceable in California, those eight Hungarian scientists could have still quit on Shockley, but they couldn't have worked in semiconductors for years afterward.
@matthewstoller @thepublicdomain @intel So yeah, literally, America's most significant growth industry in the second half of the past century only exists because noncompetes were not enforceable.
