I've heard this and the general borderline unenforceability of "we own all your work, even during off hours" clauses in employment contracts as a major reason that the center of innovation shifted from Boston and the East Coast to Silicon Valley and California.

Boston should have been Silicon Valley. It had all the education and a much deeper history of innovation. It also could have been down in New Jersey where Bell Labs was.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of where other states stand on this issue. I know Massachusetts implemented some similar reforms a decade or so ago, but that's a little late to the party.

Also rich people that are willing to take a risk, and old people that stay relevant and up-to-date on technology.

I grew up in Boston and spent the first 4 years of my career there. The biggest problem the Boston startup scene has is that VCs won't fund you unless you're 40+, have a proven track record at an established local company, and can demonstrate a solid business model with LOIs or customer contracts in hand. Sounds reasonable, right? Except that Microsoft, Facebook, Reddit, DropBox, and YCombinator all started in Boston and left because none of them ticked the boxes needed to attract funding. I had lunch with Drew Houston right after he closed DropBox's Series A, when he was looking for employee #2. He said that immediately after presenting to Sequoia, the whole office had checked out the product and he had a term sheet within a week; meanwhile the Boston VCs they presented to (despite knowing Drew since childhood) had hemmed and hawed and said "We need more data".

These are the kind of cultural differences that aren't easily papered over with policy. They're also why the Midwest and the South struggle to attract and keep startup ecosystems. I suspect that many of the problems in California (over-regulation, direct democracy, laissez-faire overlooking of social problems like homelessness & crime, the tendency for everyone to jump on the next bubble) are actually the flip sides of the cultural attributes that make it great, which is an extreme openness to new experiences and a willingness to take a chance on new ideas.

The first thing that any state should do to make itself a new tech hub is create strong protections for workers so they can freely move to different companies or found their own.

Pro-labor is not anti business, quite the opposite here. But it's never understood that way.

Problem is: most governments think of "pro-labor" laws as paid sick or maternity leave, labor unions privileges, or protections from being fired, e.g. mandating longer notice periods. This mostly benefit low wage workers, who lack bargaining power, but the needs of highly paid tech workers (such as no non-competes) go unnoticed.

Comprehensive labor reform could be a solid platform for any state representative or governor that wants to make a run in 2024, and I can see several states taking it on. There are many horses to be traded.

Some things like banning non-competes, personal IP protections, corporate immunity from COVID lawsuits, police union reform, teachers union reform, pension reform, family and sick leave... there are so many things to attach one's name to its mind boggling. And there is wide support for some of these things on both sides of the aisle - and it doesn't touch guns or abortion!

The fundamental problem is governments making laws to serve existing companies rather than to help create new things that don't exist yet. It's "hold on to what you have" vs creating something new.

> Boston should have been Silicon Valley. It had all the education

Boston is a tech hub, just smaller.

I've lived there years ago. It is a tech hub, but it's considerably smaller in most areas and has a less innovative business culture. A tell for this is the pejorative use of the word "cowboy" for someone that doesn't do things by the book. It's something you never hear elsewhere, not even in the Midwest or Texas.

It's also way too classist and aristocratic in its thinking. Where you went to school basically informs a caste system.

Climate aside though, it is a nicer city. It has more usable (though quite old) transit, is very walkable, clean, low crime, and is much more affordable than the Bay Area (though still pricey).

Yes. Interestingly, 80%+ of the world's Ion Implanters for semiconductor fabrication are designed in Greater Boston by Applied Materials (formerly Varian Semiconductor) and Axcelis (formerly Eaton). Implanters are serious science and engineering[0] machines with nearly $2 Billion worth sold in 2020.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_(semiconductor)