A big company buys a small company. Press release says “we’re excited to welcome the talented team.”
Translation: we wanted three of their engineers. The other forty people will be gone in six months. Their product will be sunset in nine. The press release will not be updated.
The acqui-hire is a talent kidnapping dressed as a wedding announcement. The founders get paid. The VCs get their exit. The team gets “integrated,” which is corporate for “absorbed and dissolved.”
Eighteen months later, the three engineers they wanted have also left. They took the money and moved to another startup. The acquiring company got nothing but a press release and a deprecation schedule.