Cleveland, Ohioan here. Just about every tech company requires, and will enforce to the fullest extent, non-competes. We're no where close to being the next silicon valley.
My admittedly anecdotal evidence is I know very talented people that have left the region to avoid litigation from their former employers and start their own ventures or advance their careers. Perhaps you have a lawyer that can compete with a corporate legal team, most of us do not.
I understand and empathize if you or your associates have been run out of town as a result of a non-compete. We are probably on the same side in a discussion about non-competes. Thank you for the references, the TC piece in particular. I wasn't aware of that part of CA law.
The Midwest in general, and Ohio in particular, has some great institutions that attract great talent from around the world, i.e. The Cleveland Clinic. The region/Ohio also educates some of the top talent.
While I'm not convinced they will be a viable competitor to Silicon Valley, it is possible. The region's ability to retain talent is the most critical component. Non-competes can make that more difficult. I don't think non-competes alone preclude the region from competing with SV.
I'm from Ohio, I live in California, and I would put a higher priority on weather than non-competes.
I kind of fired off my initial comment and should have maybe thought it through a little more, non competes are one of many reasons holding this region back. Our very risk averse investment culture is probably the biggest one actually (example: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160204/NEWS/1602099...).
And of course as you said, our brutal, brutal winters.
I was more agreeing with knoepfle's comment in rolling my eyes every time one of these articles pops up and gets shared all over my twitter, linkedin and facebook feeds. There's many reasons a lot of our talent flees the west coast or Chicago or NYC, and we'd rather read these fluff pieces instead of acknowledging and trying to fix the issues that would keep them here.
We outsource our HR/recruiting to a few third parties in a small market (Cleveland, OH, USA), there's just no way I'd trust this. Word gets out fast enough as it is here, among other things that happen behind closed doors that I wish I could bring up publicly :(
Textpattern was the first CMS that I "got" as a front end guy- after wrangling crap like PHPNuke and FusionPHP or whatever it was a breath of fresh air. Glad to see it's still kicking
I'd agree with your theory. Early this summer interviewing for 2 nearly identical positions I was told from one I was too technical, they want someone more design-focused; and I was too design focused, they want someone more technical from the other. Both positions are still open.
Assuming I didn't completely tank both interviews, I got the sense in feedback afterwards they both wanted a magical front end/back end/ designer dynamo and are holding out/hoping for that person to apply.
I think companies initially define a FED role they need, and then in interviews find everyone has slightly different but overlapping skillsets/specialties. Someone says 'hey wouldn't it be nice if we could find a dev that has all these" and spin their wheels endlessly searching for the unicorn rather than hire 2 complimentary people. Especially when they're already pushing their budget limits.
EDIT: typo :(