I'll let you in on a secret. You don't need to be in California to not worry about "non-competes". An employer rarely ever holds an employee to it; it is rarely ever upheld in court; they are just a deterrent. You cannot lawfully stop someone from gainful employment. The only time you will ever see a non-compete become an issue is if it is an executive, and even then it is rare.

You can stop someone from disclosing trade secrets, that is why most companies do a "non-compete / non-disclosure agreement". But, again, the non-compete part is about as enforced as the "do no remove label" on your mattress ;)

A company I used to work for is suing one of its ex-executives for starting a similar company after he was fired. I am interested to see how it turns out. The old bosses are of course telling everyone that they're going to win, but as you've noted, that goes against traditional wisdom and is probably just for psychological effect.

Non-competes can be enforced (even in California) if you are a founder and get bought out.

I've seen a non-compete enforced on a normal employee in Virginia - someone left a tech company that did graphics visualization to do graphics programming at a game company. While he probably would have eventually won the suit, the new company defended him - eventually settling for like 60k.

As a threat they're pretty effective at killing successful startups before they start up. I've directly experienced this sort of thing twice (well, I knew better than to sign them but others had).

Note that the lawsuit isn't going to be filed unless you're successful (or starting to be), upon which you're in for a world of hurt. Who wants to invest in a startup where success is going to earn that sort of "reward"?