Comment by mattigames
6 days ago
Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it, or at least the ones with most experience working on it, maybe even give them a tiny part of the shares of whatever company gets to own it, or perhaps with a contract for at least for a couple of years (and then could return to Google or whatever), and if possible include some incentives to make them focus on working on security bugs over new features, which tbh I think there is just too many every year.
> Buying the browser should come with most of the engineers that actively work on it
The 13th Amendment to the US constitution makes the sale of people illegal.
Seriously though - how would this ever work? Google cannot negociate on behalf of their employees or promise they will work somewhere if Google stops employing them.
I don't like it either, but it doesn't seem unprecedented. Companies sell units to each other (complete with staff) all the time.
I'm pretty sure everyone who worked at Universal Studios still worked there after Comcast bought them. I don't recall any staff being included when Google sold Domains to Squarespace, but they very well could have been.
Hell, if you've ever temped in tech, sometimes you wake up and find out you work for a different agency. "Yesterday you worked at Magnit. Today you work at TechPro."
Or it could be something in between - the buyer offers you a new contract and the seller says you'll be laid off if you don't take it.
> Google cannot negociate on behalf of their employees or promise they will work somewhere if Google stops employing them
Of course they can. Read your employment contract. It almost certainly can be assigned.
I can promise someone that you will give me $100 too. But it doesn't create obligations on your end.
My employment contract says nothing about me needing to work at any company that Google decides I should work for.
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Companies regularly buy and sell parts of themselves. I think the standard approach would be for Chrome employees to be given golden handcuffs of some sort.
Being owner of even a tiny bit of a brand new company that owns Chrome would be very attractive to engineers already working on Chrome, and it wouldn't be wise for any parent company to piss them off as they know the software better than anyone.