[Mikho]

That kind of M&A shenanigan without actual M&A to not attract scrutinization is pretty popular this year. E.g., Meta's "acquisition" of ScaleAI for $14.8 billion and Alphabet's "reverse acquihire" of key talent from Windsurf in July 2025 for $2.4 billion for non-exclusive technology licensing rights and the hiring of top executives. Apparently, in all deals employees lost while founders gained personally but didn't explicitly try to make good for people who actually took a risk by trusting them.

That really diminishes attractiveness of working in a startup where all your efforts could be swooped out by a big player via just buying IP and acquihiring founders for a price cheaper than buying the whole company and without the hustle of regulatory scrutiny. Big tech literally kills competition and innovation guaranteeing its monopoly.