Comment by johnnyanmac
6 months ago
1. probably something with AI in it. You got maybe 2-3 years before the bubble pops.
2. branding. cultural awareness can take years or more, and I'm sure coporate knows by now that their brands aren't the best thing to slap onto every scenario. Disney is well learned in this kind of conduct.
3. Because the last thing you want in an aquihire is for all the talent your poaching to jump ship. Some employees may have even worked there previously and used a company to get away from that corporate culture.
So a lot of an aquihire's money tends to go towards golden handcuffs.
Is it even clear it is an acquihire rather than the more boring “company hires maintainer of code it uses”?
It looks a bit more complicated, in that the announcement mentions the open sourcing of some proprietary tech. So it looks like there was some IP bought, along with the hires.
But it does look to be a 90% "company hires maintainer of code it uses."