In the financial industry there’s a norm that traders, and other high profile workers, will have gardening leave between jobs. The old company will pay the ex-employee for a few months to do nothing. This way when he starts at the new company and inside knowledge he gleaned is out of date. The new company knows that this is the deal and is okay with a start date after gardening leave.

This is the civilized version of a non-compete developed by New York Bankers. Oh so nice and caring California tech companies use the ruthless version. Since they now have offices in NY we need to change the law to force them to behave.