acquihire

English

Alternative forms

• acqhire, acq-hire, acquhire, acqu-hire, acqui-hire

Etymology

Coined by Rex Hammock in 2005 as acqhire, blend of acquire +‎ hire, in reference to acquisition of Dodgeball.com by Google. Hammock subsequently worked to popularize the word. Spelling inconsistent, particularly to difficulty in pronunciation (/ak-hire/), leading to longer variants.

Verb

acquihire (third-person singular simple present acquihires, present participle acquihiring, simple past and past participle acquihired)

1. (business slang) To acquire a company, in particular a small startup, to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.
   • 2017, Rob Reid, After On‎^[2], Del Rey, →ISBN:

     “Tarek was an acquihired founder like you. He turned out to be so awesome, I made him co-head of one of Phluttr's biggest projects! But that's rare. I usually look to guys like you and him to start something new. You're entrepreneurs, after all! […] ”

Noun

acquihire (plural acquihires)

1. (business slang) An acquisition of a company to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.
   • 2013 May 2, Alexis C. Madrigal, “How Facebook Designs the 'Perfect Empty Vessel' for Your Mind”, in The Atlantic‎^[3]:

     Then, in August, they bought Push Pop press, which was seen as an acquihire of designers Kimon Tsinteris and Mike Matas, who designed several of key pieces of the iPhone interface.

   • 2013 October 11, Marc Andreessen (as pmarca), “Weary of ‘Fruit Fly’ Consumer Startups, Andreessen Horowitz Raises Series A Bar”, in Hacker News‎^[4], comment:

     There are a lot of really excellent founders pursuing consumer ideas that just never work -- that's why companies like Yahoo and Google and others can do so many acquihires.