Ryan Morrissey is a serial founder of software companies, having already launched three separate startups. Yet when he sold one of those companies, he had to sign an agreement to not start any more for a while.
“I think you should be able to go wherever you want,” Morrissey said, although he did express concerns about possible trade-secrets risks and companies poaching entire teams of workers. But he said as an entrepreneur, “the only thing I can do is hire people who are ethical.” Don’t miss: Your boss will no longer be able to make you sign noncompete agreements — if federal regulators have their way
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director of the Open Markets Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., disagrees. In 2019, Open Markets helped lead an effort — along with labor unions and other groups — to urge the FTC to propose the rules to ban noncompetes.