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You're right, but part of running a business is recognizing where your value/vulnerabilities are and protecting them. If you have millions riding on the perfor

You're right, but part of running a business is recognizing where your value/vulnerabilities are and protecting them. If you have millions riding on the performance of a team of researchers and engineers, then you spend more than you otherwise would to retain them. This is especially true if your field is in high demand. Mitigating risk is just another operational cost. Acquihires happen when the team is well motivated to remain but another company has deeper pockets. It's either cheaper to poach staff or buy the company and it can be a tough call which it is. It also feels like academics are a bit inconsistent here. Universities are run like any other business but act as though they have a special position as dispensers of education.

btown 11y ago
The important thing here is that universities never before really had to worry about mass poaching of their researchers. Last year, smart administrators could very reasonably go "look, we're probably paying below market, but there have literally been 0 datapoints where a department has seen an existential crisis because everyone left at once, and so if the departures of our researchers go beyond a trickle, we'll re-evaluate our packages." It wasn't unethical for Uber to take advantage of this market inefficiency, but as more and more universities are seeking private funding for projects, it should serve as a wake-up call. If you want to encourage your PIs to get non-government grants, be prepared that this comes with a nonzero risk of acquihire offers for the research group... and as the university, you don't have "board" control.