I also had to push back against an overly broad non-compete when contracting.
When I was leading engineering at an early startup, I had to push back against our lawyer, who drafted an employment agreement that none of us wanted to sign. It included broad non-compete, and a bunch of other grabby clauses.
That startup one was tricky, because we were getting rumors that supposedly investors were demanding non-competes from tech startups. Silicon Valley notwithstanding. (And a bunch of clauses I hadn't seen before, including things like, IIRC, the company has right to do search and seizure in the home of the employee, on IP grounds. This was pre-Covid.)
It's hard to argue, when you're an aspiring actor, fresh off the bus in LA, and a producer is claiming to you that every role starts with the casting couch.
To resolve the argument-from-authority impasses on the startup's employee agreement, the company reimbursed me to hire a lawyer representing me as an employee. Both for my own interests as an employee, and to provide some kind of balance for the interests of employees in general.
California explicitly protects ownership of inventions made on your own time/equipment[0].
AFAIK other states tend to default to employer ownership of inventions.
This alone is a huge win for Cali when it comes to HN/maker type folks...
[0] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/lab/2870-2872.h...