[tweedledee]

There is also the role of the VCs who facilitate much of this. They use VPs in big companies to offload crappy purpose built startups for huge profits then get their friends to offer the VP sweetheart deals and or future employment. AFAIK the arms-length / chinese walls keep it legal in appearance. Basically any big tech company with lots of money and terrible management is prone to this.

[rexreed]

This is also common in government contracting.

When you say "offload" crappy startups, do you mean getting the company acquired by that company or purchase the startups products?

[tweedledee]

Acquisitions. Say a big company lacks in category, an exec from that company can let a VC know that they would like to buy a company in that category and are willing to pay a certain amount. The VC then goes about bringing the company into existence. Do a song and dance about how it's a real company. Buy a bunch of positive press. Cram it full of new grads. Then before it can collapse under its own weight offload it.