This issue brings to mind the fight over Phillip Shoemaker at Apple. Self driving cars and the engineering behind it seems highly specialized. Will this case with Levandowski put pressure on engineers to stay put, a stronger, tacit non-compete and no-poaching rule?
The nice thing about California is employers' concerns about the market, competition, and trade secrecy cannot take priority over an individual's right to work (with narrow exceptions for owners selling a business).
To the extent it puts pressure on the companies -- perhaps. But it shouldn't hurt the employees themselves; on the contrary, perhaps it encourages the companies to keep engineers around by granting enticing equity packages with long-ish vesting schedules.
Or you're right, and they'll just collude. Guess it could go either way...!
California has a law limiting the effectiveness of non-compete agreements. Most of these jobs are in California. Perhaps the companies will lobby California lawmakers, but I doubt it would be successful.
