The important thing here is that universities never before really had to worry about mass poaching of their researchers. Last year, smart administrators could v

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.