Acquihire

An acquihire is an acquisition made primarily to hire the team rather than to buy the product or its revenue. A larger company wants the founders and engineers, so it buys the whole business as the cleanest way to bring them on board, often shutting the product down afterwards. For founders, an acquihire is a soft landing: it's not the outcome anyone sets out for, but it lets you exit with a job, sometimes a modest payout, and your reputation intact rather than winding the company down to nothing. The economics are usually thin. The price tracks the value of the people, not a multiple on a business that worked, so investors may recover little and founders may see most of the value land as retention packages tied to staying put. For a lean founder, it's worth understanding as the floor of the exit ladder: better than a shutdown, well short of a real sale.