[jacquesm]

> How they do this merits more investigation.

It's easy:

The first group they get straight out of the gate with the certainty of 150K+ salaries for as long as they're employed. Life-style adapts to new stream of income, hooked, threat of potential start-up neutralized.

The second group goes against the grain, refuses the initial bait and starts a competitor and then gets bought out at a significant multiple of their real life value - if you ignore the threat to the top dog. If you don't ignore that threat it makes good business sense.