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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

General questions about "talent acquisitions" ... when it happens, what's to keep the talent from leaving? Is it generally a scenario where the talent wouldn't sell if they didn't want to stay on board–or are there also clauses in the acquisition that actually prevent them from leaving?

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My understanding is that usually a significant part of the payout is in stock, which will vest over a couple years.

Facebook stock? haha

The latter. Always. Usually with extra incentive to ensure that you are productive over the period you are there.

But how does this work with the non-owning 'talent'? The owners of a company can't force/guarantee that their engineers are going to stay, right?

Vesting. Nearly all startups grant equity options to employees, and these options vest over a certain period of time (usually 4 years). While employment is usually at-will, if you leave, you lose all of your unvested stock (hence, the incentive to stick around).

You can offer vesting or other stock type transactions to secure loyalty, or it can even be as simple as offering retention bonuses to key staff members. It's not overly complex, and talent would be assessed at individual performance and job function levels.

Retention bonuses.

One simple way is to make that a condition of the sale.

The second is to defer part of the payment until that condition is met.

The third is 'golden handcuffs' though I doubt that would be very effective with this crowd.

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