Start-Ups Get Snapped Up for Their Talent

Interesting piece in the WSJ which details how social media companies such as Facebook and the like are buying up start up companies just to acquire talent.  Personally I would find it to be a very difficult decision to sell my company which I have worked so hard to build in order to go work for someone else in similar capacity but without actually owning it.  However, I am not blind to the realities of the situation in which case walking away from a lucrative deal as you live out of a friend's closet (one example given in the article) would not be the prudent thing to do.

Full article here

• Established technology companies increasingly are buying—and then shutting down—early stage start-ups, mostly to acquire their software-engineering talent.
• The deals, which typically range in price from about $3 million to $6 million, started to become commonplace in Silicon Valley last year as demand for software engineers soared.
• Accepting an acqui-hire offer not only sidelines an entrepreneur's dreams, but it typically results in negligible, or even zero, returns for the start-up's investors.