“While no one predicted this specific outcome, we shouldn’t be surprised,” added the investor Benaich. “If antitrust regulators make [mergers and acquisitions] prohibitively difficult, we should expect these bizarre semi-exits to become more common.”
If your company’s secret sauce is that it employs a particular person, then your moat is whatever it takes to poach that person. If that person is willing to leave behind whatever intellectual property, un-vested equity, and relationships behind, then your company was never that valuable to begin with.