AWS is based in Seattle and WA does have non competes so almost every tech company there will try to have you sign one. One of the reasons why Seattle will never become a real tech hub. And I’ve never seen any stipulations of payment while non compete is pending for engineering roles

Are you mixing up gardening leave and non-competes?

In any case, I think above some level of compensation basically all crazy clauses that people agree to voluntarily should be fine as far as the law is concerned: there's no need to protect well-off people from themselves.

There might or might not be an argument that poor people need to be protected from themselves like little children, and thus that there should be some contracts they shouldn't be allowed to enter. (Just like we only allow some very carefully considered contracts for children to enter into. Eg buying candy is fine; but going into debt is not enforceable against them.)

Correction, MOST USA states still allow non-compete clauses.

Seems like California, North Dakota and Oklahoma are the ones that don't allow non-compete clauses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause