The big news in the press last week about Microsoft was that it would publish compensation data, but the most important part of the Microsoft announcement was that it would no longer require non-competes nor enforce old ones.

The obvious driver is the competition for top talent.  But there also seem to be two fundamental changes: first, big tech used to be most ardent enforcers of noncomps but I bet Microsoft is in the forefront of a sea change; second, the pace of change in tech is such that protecting today’s ideas seems useless since progress will obsolete tomorrow the cutting edge technology of today.

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