Are there good examples where an acqui-hire works out for the acquiring company? Seems like the acquiring company's culture is almost always at odds with the company being acquired and it causes the high performing teams they paid dearly for to leave.

I don't understand what a company hopes to gain doing stuff like this as the (long term) incentives don't seem to align.

If they truly don't want the tech - meaning this is a straight-up acqui-hire - then the employees of the acquired company continue to have a job, and ideally some sort of bonus or earn out for staying N months or years. It is a nicer landing than bankruptcy.

The executives of the firm being acquired usually don't come, unless they have some skillset the acquiring company needs. But they (hopefully) get a cash bonus for the successful acquisition.

Everything is negotiable of course.

The only way I have seen this work out is to give the aqui-hired team a ton of equity in the new company so that they don't jump ship immediately.

What does the acquiring company get out of this transaction though? What's the return on investment here if folks end up leaving or are completely checked out during their rest-n-vest? You can spend millions with a high end boutique consulting firm that will most likely be more accountable and productive than an acqui-hire.

Firebase (which I was part of). Dunno if you count it as an acquihire if the product survives but I am pretty sure we did what the big G hoped we would

if you have a specific task at hand, it may be easier to buy a team that works well with each other and has expertise in a certain area to accomplish a specific task. not expecting them all to stay on forever

It's fairly common to not disclose the terms publicly.