That’s a loophole. Regulation hasn’t caught up to the innovation of non-exclusive licensing deal. Hopefully we’ll get some competence back in government soon-ish and can rectify the mistake
"I don't want you and your 200 tensorflow/pytorch monkeys. I just want your top scientist and I need a clever way to offer him a nine figure salary. Good of you to grant him so much stock and not options. Now I can just make a transfer to your shareholders, of which he is one! Awesome! Now I don't have to buy your company!"
I'll give you bonus points if you can guess what happens to the worthless options all those TF/PyTorch monkeys are holding?
Guys, seriously, be careful who you go to work for, because chances are, you are not the key scientist.
You can't have the government coming in telling a scientist who he has to work for. People are free to take jobs at whatever company they like.
This is just a clever mechanism of paying that intellectual capital an amount of money so far outside the bounds of a normal salary that it borders on obscenity.
All that said, I don't say anything when Jordan Love or Patrick Mahomes are paid hundreds of millions, so I need to learn to shut my mouth in this case as well. I just think it sucks for the regular employees. I guarantee they will lose their jobs over the next 24 months.