This bums me out
This morning the ACG Boston chapter had a breakfast event called: “DealMakers Breakfast: Innovation ‘08: The VC View on What’s Hot & What’s Not”
Anyway, according to a trusted source, our effort to get rid of non-competes was raised by Mike Oliveri who is the Publisher of the Boston Business Journal & Mass High Tech. (note: I don’t know Mike)
Apparently, I’m told that the other panel members were telling the audience members this was merely a Spark Capital publicity stunt and they said some pretty negative things.
I wasn’t there so I can’t confirm this for sure.
But I can assure anyone that will listen that this isn’t a publicity stunt.
We have a real issue here in Massachusettes. The status quo isn’t working. And yes, I agree that the non-competes issue isn’t the only challenge here in this state. We have plenty of others too.
But non-competes are a key ingredient in the status quo and they stifle innovation. You don’t hear west coast companies or west coast CEOs/entrepreneurs asking to bring back the non-competes in california.
Also, the idea of getting rid of non-competes isn’t a Spark point of view. It’s shared by others and the list is growing (in fact Mike Feinstein former partner from Venrock and Atlas joined the effort today!).
So I would ask the folks on the panel a favor: before you rush to judgement and decide that I’m a publicity hound just give me a call and let’s meet for coffee. And we can discuss this without such nastiness or negativity.
Thanks.
