I know of a research company that wound up getting bought by Northrop Grumman largely for the engineering talent - IP was only a secondary consideration. From t

I know of a research company that wound up getting bought by Northrop Grumman largely for the engineering talent - IP was only a secondary consideration. From the stories I've heard, NG was very kind to the engineers and let them keep doing things nearly exactly the way they had been doing them. One of the senior engineers managed to talk his way into 6 weeks of paid vacation every year in addition to the usual holidays, which is virtually unheard of in larger American companies.