An explanation of how this deal probably works:<p>Color had 41M in funding, of which $25M are left. That money goes back to investors. Apple threw in maybe $5M. That also goes to investors.<p>Apple interviews each employee and decides who stays and who goes. The value for Apple is that a team that works together well is more than the sum of the parts, but only if they keep the people who would fit well within Apple.<p>The people who stay usually receive a retention package which could be a mix of restricted stock units and cash, vests over three or four years, and is determined by:<p>- the experience and seniority of each person.<p>- the perceived value of each person to Apple.<p>Apple tries to gauge what it would take for the core of the team to stay long enough. Someone may need 500k over four years in addition to salary, someone else may need 2M. It's impossible to say what is being offered to each developer unless you're an insider.<p>For that reason nobody can know what the deal really costs to Apple, but it's definitely more than what investors get. Otherwise, the really valuable people would not go to Apple just for a paycheck.<p>Source: I've been involved in deals of this sort since the late 90s, mostly on the side of the acquirer.
So if I work for company A, and one day, company B comes to my boss and says :<p>B: 'Hi, sell us 10 developers for $n million'.
A: 'Sure, any prefference?'
B: 'No, not really what do you got?'
A: 'Well I have a good 2 men team, 1 really good debugger and blablabla...'<p>Maybe I'm biased, but when did we become comodity? Can you trade developers at say a country fair or what?
$2 million for 20 engineers is $100,000 per engineer on average. That's not much in an acquihire.<p>$100,000 is low just as a signing bonus for desired talent at an A list company. Apple must not think very much of their skills. In which case, why hire them at all? Strange!
The problem I see with this is the profile of the developer. Color was a cutting edge startup. I assume developers who went there did so with the idea of tremendous upside on their stock options. Apple, while a fine company, is really at the other end of the spectrum right? So if I'm at Color haven't I made the decision to forgo the safety and security of a large company for the upside of a startup? I suppose a few, after what's happened, may have changed their mind. It does seem an odd fit though.
It's nice to see that the early employees of Color aren't going to end up completely screwed, and have a stable job with a company that is doing well, if they so desire.