Comments on: Boston: No More Silicon Valley Envy!

By: Dan Weinreb

Dan Weinreb — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:09:30 +0000

@Terry: This is about non-competes being null and void in California. I discussed this in an earlier comment. I hope we can get this in Massachusetts!

By: Terry

Terry — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 08:57:44 +0000

There is a reason why Silicon Valley can be in CA only:

http://www.netvalley.com/silicon_valley/Legal_Bridge_From_El_Dorado_to_Silicon_Valley.html

By: Stephen Quatrano

Stephen Quatrano — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 04:00:22 +0000

I don’t know about similarities and differences between the venture communities, but I do know this: I looked for and found The MIT Drinking Song Dan alludes to in his post and enjoyed this rendition of “We Are the Engineers” very much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsFeKhjvpSg

By: Daniel R.

Daniel R. — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:18:27 +0000

Another great tech incubator that has started up recently is Dogpatch Labs Cambridge: http://dogpatchlabs.com/

By: startupbug.com

startupbug.com — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 06:32:07 +0000

Boston: No More Silicon Valley Envy!…

I don’t know, but I’ve been told: investors here are different from investor there. But I’d use the word “careful” rather than “risk-averse”. It’s not the same. There is more and more seed funding around Boston. Seed funding is very risky. It’s just th…

By: Eric Estabrooks

Eric Estabrooks — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:49:26 +0000

Great plug for Boston, Dan. Anecdotally, there seems to be an ever growing number of seed opportunities in Boston. One of the bigger, organized efforts this summer/fall is Mass Challenge (http://www.masschallenge.org). I’d love to see some stats on seed funding on the different coasts.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed because I’m starting a Fashion 2.0 company (i.e. Fashion==NYC), but I’m seeing a big Boston vs. NYC rivalry, too. The membrane between the two cities seems to be very permeable for the VCs, but the Angels seem to stick to their own turf (i.e. I don’t run into them at events).

GILT is on everyone’s tongue of course.

By: Winston Smith

Winston Smith — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:20:12 +0000

To paraphrase James Carville/Bill Clinton, “It’s the non-compete, stupid!”. Got a good idea? In MA your current employer owns it (unless you’re prepared to go to court over it), in CA, you’re more or less free & clear leave and start a company.

Who needs a lawsuit when you’re starting a company? Who’s going to invest in a company where the founders spend more time in court than the lab/office?

Until MA outlaws non-competes and until employees have the mobility to move from company to company without fear of legal reprisals, the MA high tech sector will only continue stagnate compared to Silicon valley.

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/12/07/contract_clauses_called_stifling/

By: Dan Weinreb

Dan Weinreb — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:41:19 +0000

OK, I checked. BEA’s contract explicitly referenced Section 2970(a). My lawyer was pretty sure that it only applied to patent rights, so we checked with an intellectual property expert at Gunderson, Detmar, a well-known Palo Alto law firm that does exactly this kind of law. The attorney there said he was extremely familiar with 2870, and it absolutely only applies to patent rights, not to copyright rights. My friend in Mass. was right.

As it happens, the only time anyone has won a non-compete lawsuit in Mass (at least as of 2002) is when suing a salesperson for stealing away accounts. But that doesn’t say anything about how the threat of such a suit may have been used. (Citation: A law professor at Harvard Law who did a study on exactly this question; my brother was a student there in 2002 when I was being hired by BEA and learning all this.)

By: Scott Burson

Scott Burson — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:10:26 +0000

I’m pretty sure that California Labor Code section 2870 is quite a bit older than that. I can’t find definite confirmation, but the statute itself refers to the date January 1, 1980, suggesting that that’s when it went into effect. It’s possible that BEA handed you a contract that wasn’t consistent with the law, in which case I would think you could have had that clause invalidated in court if necessary (IANAL, though).

But yes, along with emulating that statute, Massachusetts should definitely outlaw non-compete clauses. Those two steps will, over time, make a huge difference in the vitality of the startup culture there. There’s no shortage of brainpower in the Boston area… there just need to be some structural adjustments to better foster startups.

By: Dan Weinreb

Dan Weinreb — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:02:30 +0000

I don’t know. At the time I joined BEA (a California company) in 2002, I don’t think that law was in place. I remember having to modify the contract that they wanted me to sign. It looked at first as if the contract said just that. But then I checked with an IP lawyer, and he said that the way they had phrased the contract, they relinquished patent rights if you did your own stuff on your own time. But they said nothing about relinquishing copyright rights. It was just a drafting error in their part. But if such a law had been in effect, it would never have been an issue at all.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of discussion in the startup community about outlawing non-compete clauses. They are not allowed in California!