As everyone in the tech world knows, California has a statute making employment related noncompete agreements illegal. There is now a movement afoot in to make them illegal in Massachusetts. For reasons that I have noted before, I don’t think making these agreements illegal in Massachusetts will make much, if any, difference in the tech community. On the plus side, it will take one irritating concern off the table for employees seeking to move. But will it really change the east coast tech culture to make it more like Silicon Valley? I don’t think so. Having said that, Paul Boutin in a recent article in Wired described the Silicon Valley employment culture with these words, "Worker mobility gives the tech industry fluidity, velocity, and energy. It creates a culture in which people routinely jump from one job to another, looking to get in on the next must-have product or service. As it happens, that lack of loyalty has been a key driver of the Valley’s rapid innovation over the past three decades…" As evidence he sites AnnaLee Saxenian to the effect that job hopping facilitates the flow of knowledge between individuals and firms. I am guessing that New England has certain cultural traits that make a culture of job hopping unlikely, and doing away with noncompetes, while it will take an important irritant off the table for employees seeking to leave companies, it will not turn New England into Silicon Valley. Much more likely to have this result is for local VCs to start behaving more like west coast VCs – but that is a topic for another post.