Poaching doesn't work when the people you're trying to hire fall out of bed and land in 10 job offers. These people aren't job hunting. Acqui-hires generally

Poaching doesn't work when the people you're trying to hire fall out of bed and land in 10 job offers. These people aren't job hunting. Acqui-hires generally have a tension where the founders/investors want money for stock, but the acquirer doesn't really value the stock very highly. If it were up to them, they'd want to dissolve the company and hire the team with big signing bonuses and retention packages. Practically speaking, what generally happens is that the team gets a "back-loaded" deal where they get a combination of signing bonuses, stock payout, and annual retention packages that start small but get larger every year. So if you quit in the first year, you pretty much get nothing other than a few stock dollars.