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Interesting. Seems like a cheaper alternative to acquihiring. :-) Long term I'd love to see stats on this. My intuition is you'd wind up more successful, si
by mathattack 10y ago
Interesting. Seems like a cheaper alternative to acquihiring. :-)
Long term I'd love to see stats on this. My intuition is you'd wind up more successful, similar to how referrals make better employees. There does seem like some risk though - the team will likely succeed or fail as a group.
- depot 10y agoDon't you think they'd separate if they failed? Or is separating the same as failing? If I had a team I'd want to keep it together but not so much if it doesn't actually work.
- cperciva 10y agoSeems like a cheaper alternative to acquihiring I was thinking exactly the same thing: This is like acquihiring except that it skips the "spend a year on a proof-of-talent product which gets thrown away after the acquisition". Of course, the downside is that the team interview process isn't likely to be anywhere near as effective a filtering tool as spending a year building a product.
- tedmiston 10y agoAnd two programmers that work well together isn't equivalent to two technical co-founders that work well together.
- joncooper 10y agoIt also skips the part where the team being hired gets a large signing bonus.
- cperciva 10y agoSure, but an (acqui)hiring bonus is balanced by the time spent creating the acquired company. I'd think of it as being part signing bonus and part back pay.
- mbesto 10y agoI'd imagine any smart working team would negotiate this heavily. This setup appeals heavily to someone like me (with 2 other people specifically), but I would also be personally be asking for $300k+ salaries for each person + signing bonus + RSUs. It would be a happy medium between a lengthy and pricey acquihire and getting 3 developers/PM people who you know already will work well together. I'd recommend that anyone doing this that they negotiate their salaries very heavily.
- lawnchair_larry 10y agoWhat experience are you drawing on for that recommendation? Big companies don't typically negotiate wildly on salary, as it's tied to a leveling system that breaks too many things if your numbers don't fit. They would have to negotiate on levels and make everyone VPs to meet your salary demands, which would cause other problems. So, this might not be the best advice. Acquihirees get a few knobs to turn, but salary is the least turnable.
- mbesto 10y ago> * What experience are you drawing on for that recommendation?* I work on tech M&A.
- lawnchair_larry 10y agoIs your experience different from mine then? You do see companies negotiating on salary?
- mathattack 10y agoIs there that much room for a company like Strike to negotiate on salary? I hope they're that entrepreneurial. For better or worse, I've seen large companies sometimes acquihire (amongst other reasons) as a way to pay up without killing their salary bands.
- ryandrake 10y agoAn acquired company's owners also get to pocket whatever the purchase price of the company was, less investors' take. Sweet deal! You get paid for your "company" and you also all get jobs! A team-hired group foregoes this, unless they negotiate an up-front "team acquisition fee".
- biot 10y ago> There does seem like some risk though - the team will > likely succeed or fail as a group. And the team may also leave as a group.
- mathattack 10y agoYes. Live by the sword, die by the sword. :-)
- abalone 10y agoNo, acquihires require the consent of management. Stripe makes it clear this is primarily for software engineers, not "managers".* This is for "group defectors" i.e. engineering coworkers who are unhappy at their current company, complain about it together, and can coordinate their migration. This (potentially) gives them a way to move together as a team. *(Granted, some startups are 100% engineers, but they could make much more money via an acquihire than this route.)
- studentrob 10y ago> Stripe makes it clear this is primarily for software engineers, not "managers".* If a team already works well together, what is their new Stripe manager going to do? That sounds a bit awkward for said manager. He or she would be in a weak negotiating position with the group. I'd argue that although Stripe isn't seeking to hire more managers, they are outsourcing management a little bit by allowing these not-yet-hires to form their own teams. It does relieve some burden. I wonder what happens when something goes awry and a correction is needed. Will the group follow the new manager's suggestions? So many things could go right or wrong with this.