[hga]

According to the article that this comment of mine discusses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6141238 that's the only way they've found to acquire mobile talent after treating it very badly in times past. Sounds like no matter how energetic the recruiting, people in this field aren't going to jump to them unless they have little or no choice.

Key sentence fragment: "In each instance, Yahoo has locked up engineers with two- to four-year contracts...."

[droithomme]

They could offer good work conditions and autonomy and get best of breed developers for $200,000, but they say that sort of salary is outlandish and they prefer to pay VCs several million per talent acquisition instead, claiming that makes more sense. But does it really.

[rdouble]

They couldn't do that because it would break with the valley's tradition of engineer salary price-fixing.

[badclient]

Has Yahoo ever tried to offer $500,000+ to rockstar mobile devs? Until it tries that, it is lame to argue that it must get talent from deadpooled companies.

[photorized]

That doesn't get the same PR as all this M&A activity. And the PR helps them get more talent.

[badclient]

Is this the best PR you can get for a $70M budget?

[jack-r-abbit]

But you always have a choice. Nobody can force you to be acquired... that would be slavery. The seller can require as part of the deal the buyer offer to keep a certain amount of people at a certain pay. Buyer can accept that deal or negotiate. But at the end of the day, every employee has a choice to sign the new contract or not. So anyone who got "locked up" in a 2-4 year contract did so because they felt it was a good move for them (or at least better than not having a job).

[thezilch]

It's a silly "choice;" employees shouldn't be treated with handcuffs. You should be offering them a clear incentive to NOT leave with the cash.

Unfortunately, a lot of developers going to work for a startup have a starry-eyed perspective that the 80hr week is going to pay itself back in droves and without the golden handcuffs. Then reality sets in; the seller doesn't necessarily think much about his employee's outlook -- "dude, you get to work for Yahoo!!!!"

Employees of startups need to be reminded to not take cuts, because the buyout should be gravy; it will likely never come or come with a heavy ball-n-chain.

[hga]

Indeed. But I'm pretty sure they got a "sign this soon or leave" offer than many chose not to refuse.

[mikeash]

Even then, they can leave Yahoo at any time if they change their minds. They'll just lose out on their big payday.

[hga]

Outside of California they might be ... hindered by non-competes. I was once in this position: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6148918 and one of the many reasons I didn't accept the offer was that non-competes were enforceable in my state, the contact had a nasty one, and the acquiring company did business with so many of the area's organizations that I would have been seriously disadvantaged when it came time to separate.

[mikeash]

Yuck. Fortunately, both companies in this case are in California.

[caw]

Having never been in this situation, what stops a developer from signing and doing almost no work for Y! while they ride out their contract? I feel like if they get fired they could just claim that Y! didn't want to pay them, so they fired them instead.

[clientbiller]

A lot of people do this.