[ironchef]

Typically the purchasing company will have an idea of who are must keeps, etc. They'll then put financial incentives in place that would typically exceed free market (golden handcuffs...in a manner similar to startup vesting (X amount of shares or X in cashola vesting / released over Y amount of time))

[EarthLaunch]

If you're going to joke around about handcuffs, you can't misuse "free market" at the same time. The offer doesn't exceed "free market", it simply exceeds market.

[ironchef]

Ahh..true. My bad.