In California non-compete agreements are severely restricted and much less enforceable, and that's one major reason Silicon Valley is in California and not elsewhere, as so many semiconductor companies were started by people jumping ship. That's one reason why, for anyone who wants to get some experience in a major company but has dreams of eventually starting their own company, California may be a better place to be despite the high cost of living.

Counterpoint: the anti-poaching agreements between Apple, Google, and others [1] shows that other than better non-compete statutes, SV isn’t any better than any other place, especially if the largest employers want to collude to prevent hiring one another’s employees.

It’s unhelpful to fall into the trap of thinking the Valley is any better than any other place.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...

An illegal agreement that ended in 2009 is a poor proof of your point.

It is unreasonable to believe that they stopped simply because of that minor slap on the wrist. I’m sure they’re just much more careful now; tens of billions of dollars are on the line.

Team leaders at the big companies now feel far more freedom to try to recruit people from big competitors, thanks in part to the poaching agreement being found to be illegal. So it did matter. You're launching a big project, you don't have the needed expertise in house, and a guy/gal you know who works for OtherBigFAANG would be a good fit. You call them. Back when the poaching agreement was in effect, HR would tell you you can't hire them. Now they won't, in fact, they can't.

It’s more a statement that Apple owns its employees.

Non-compete clauses are null and void in California. That doesn't mean they're not in the contracts and that doesn't mean that something non-compete-ish clause-ish isn't in there.

Still I think this is a bad look for Apple.

Not null and void. But they are limited in scope.