CRASS CEILING

Where do start-ups find qualified leaders, particularly in niche markets where specific skill sets are scarce? By the same token, where can upwardly mobile executives best use their hard-won experience and expertise to reach the highest of rungs?

Anywhere but the competition, evidently.

Storage systems leader EMC won a lawsuit last month that removed its ex-division chief, Doron Kempel, from his newly appointed post as CEO of start-up competitor SANgate Systems. EMC successfully enforced a noncompete agreement Kempel had signed as a condition of employment.

Such agreements should be unlawful. In fact, 10 enlightened states have made them so. Unfortunately for Kempel, Massachusetts isn't one of them.

There's little doubt that the first chance some new CEOs get, they make sure their own noncompete policies are in place. But no corporation by virtue of getting there first should have the capacity or audacity to hinder individuals from pursuing the American dream.

The very idea of noncompete agreements is crass. It is the antithesis of a free society. Granted, these agreements are meant to protect a company's competitive secrets. But there are other laws that protect patents and intellectual property. If a company's business model is so unique, they should patent it.

Even in states where they are legal, noncompetes are difficult to enforce. Many that are brought to court are thrown out. They should be. Ideally, they should never come to court.

Companies that require employees to sign noncompete agreements are not so much protecting their competitive secrets as they are trying to hide their weaknesses. Companies that raid the competition for employees are certainly trying to exploit those weaknesses, but they aren't necessarily looking to copy formulas or emulate the competition's best practices. As funded start-ups, they obviously believe they have something unique to offer. Individuals should not be responsible for protecting an ex-employer's shortcomings.

EMC is merely the most recent example of a growing phenomenon that was largely ignored over the last few years when everyone was making money. Now that the market is less forgiving, it is being applied too broadly. To its credit, EMC has reportedly been consistent with its policy over the years and does not appear to be reacting to any particular change in the market.

Companies that require noncompete agreements unfairly deny people such as Kempel a pursuit deemed self-evident in the Declaration of Independence. People shouldn't sign noncompete agreements any more than they should pee in cups. And companies shouldn't require them.