This deal has got me thinking... whether a right way to "lay-off" a supremely talented bunch is to actually see if other companies are willing to offer them jobs? Kind of how player transfers happen in Football (soccer).
Either the team goes to the newer company wholesale or you help find your engineers suitable roles elsewhere.
One might argue there's no advantage to the company laying-off people, but they could save on the severance package, and frankly, two companies entering an understanding like this bodes well on other levels where someone could probably explore a "cross-company" job change with blessings of the employers on both sides of the table.
Of course, things like salary negotiations take a hit for the candidate especially, but internal transfers to different teams / location in bigger companies already work this way. May be year-end reviews and code can be shared on a need-to-know basis between the companies with employee consent.
In particular, such arrangements between smaller / crash-strapped companies and bigger / well-funded companies might work out for the good. Then again, you never want the bigger company to start poaching wholesale from the smaller one. May be there's a balance in here somewhere that can be worked out given enough time and data.