Or set off a new bidding war for both the researchers that quit and the pile of new startups... There's no rule that stays M$ would have to be the only bidder for the new venture(s).
the problem with that is then overruns bankrupt the venture/company bidding, and it doesn't get completed, and you have to spend even more having somebody else take over.
Well, yes. Except, with his leaving, and assuming all the important people, etc went with him, what would the remaining co-founder have left to be competing with?
Then what resources would the remaining co-founder have to go through the US court system?
Lastly, leaving and re-starting doesn't have to mean the exact same product.
I know what you are saying, but Im pretty sure it could be side stepped with some creative thinking.
How would they have complete control if they were ejected?
If you're talking about control of another company, I'd imagine there'd be some time period of non-compete, and trouble finding new investment (assuming investment was needed).
They could just quit then organize together and form a competing company with stronger ethics. Would be good to see this happen to a lot of near monopolies.
I gotta think that's the standard operating procedure and part of the deal for getting bought out ($$$) is the founders can't run off and just clone it.
Maybe avoid issues with non-competes or claims of "stolen" IP later.
Or maybe, if the founders negotiated a deal for the team to stay together an investor might argue that that they are acting against the best interest of the company and might try to hold them liable for that.
The remaining cofounder appears to have bought them out and the leaving one appears to have accepted. That's by mutual consent and the furthest thing from a hostile takeover.
How was the old venture terminated? Was there an LLC or corporation that was dissolved? I'm concerned that the previous investors might claim that although this is a new idea and new team, the company is the same. How was each venture established legally?
Companies are not primarily purchased, but sold. The previous owner could've continued, but they've chosen not to. We can't dictate them what to do, right?
they would lose the ownership of their companies in this case.
it will be up to new owners - to wait things out - or to sell-off the equipment and licenses to somebody else
I don't have any, but how would that change anything? Presumably, people won't just shut down a company, they will sell it to somebody else - the company stays in operation, only with new owners.
Theoretically, it seems all Red Hatters could quit simultaneously and form a new company according to the same structure they had before.
Of course in practice that requires a lot of coordination, there's a ton of legal hoops to jump through and you end up with a big company built around customers it doesn't currently have.
And the people at that company who enjoy developing attacks more than they enjoy defending against attacks would just leave and form a new company, that would then sell its attacks to the highest bidder.
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