Uber is building a self-driving car research center in Pittsburgh. They hired most of the CMU self-driving car people. Supposedly they're going to renovate a railroad roundhouse in Hazelwood and use some of the empty space from the old coke plant for road testing. How's that working out?
In California, anything you do on your own time belongs to you, and the previous employer can't enforce most non-compete agreements. So you can leave and do a startup even if your old employer doesn't like it. That's an edge Silicon Valley has and no other state has had the guts to copy.
It took a long time for Sili Vally to become Sili Valley, and a confluence of factors.
CMU has grant money coming in. But CMU seems to pride itself on being Scottishly tight-fisted with how it treats the IP of faculty and students. And tight-fisted about everything else -- About a year ago I attended accepted student's day with my daughter (accepted to both Carnegie's College of Computer Science and Institute of Technology) and I got the distinct impression that CMU is not very flexible and is not very generous about much of anything -- kind of a state school attitude at private school prices. (My daughter chose MIT over CMU.)
So I think to make Pittsburgh work as a start-up hub, it will take CMU being a little more open, some more inventor-friendly IP laws by the state of PA, and patience. And somehow you have to keep the first generation of successful entrepreneurs around to be the VC's for the next generation.
It's a normal employment clause, don't freak out. Just fix it. Tell them that you would like your own projects excluded and your agreement should exclude your own personal projects as long as you inform them in writing of what those projects are.
It's not something to be appalled about. They aren't trying to be evil overlords.
In California, anything you do on your own time belongs to you, and the previous employer can't enforce most non-compete agreements. So you can leave and do a startup even if your old employer doesn't like it. That's an edge Silicon Valley has and no other state has had the guts to copy.