Meanwhile, the way that plays out is that Google hires all the talent by fairly paying more than the startup can, then can turn around and say "your company is a dead man walking, you can either sell us your tech, or crash and burn with nothing", and the only fiscally responsible decision is to sell.
Antitrust is also federal and is probably generally supreme over state law. E.g. even if Google fairly acquires talent according to state law, it can still be determined to violate antitrust.
This poaching scenario (where Big Co pays above market to a large number of employees to drive a competitor out of business) is very similar to dumping (selling goods below market etc.), which has been illegal for a long time even though "selling goods" is generally legal.
However, since the government (DoJ, FTC, etc.) is the ideal litigant, you actually need someone who works there to not get fired for long enough to complete investigation and enforcement. In a lot of anti-trust cases, all the direct participants benefit: the employees get paid more, Big Co consolidates power, and Small Co gets paid off. The "losers" are most distant like their customers or uninvolved competitors who aren't in a good position to sue.
does anyone know if the employees who didnt get poached got their equity paid out?
That the new "investor" choses to let their investment die may not matter, it would also be cheaper to selectively buy out investors than buy out all equity in the company.
"if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck" should apply to acquisitions. These types of acquisitions leave employees (+ other shareholders) holding the bag. It should be illegal.
Yes, by offering them things like equity in the company. This practice throws all that out the window though, in essence unilaterally renegotiating the terms of employment. When the leadership team can be acquired independently of the company then these employees can be left with nothing. Sometimes the corp doing the acquisition will throw a bone to the dregs left, but that does not appear to be legally required. It's exploitative and unjust.
In particular for the noncompete ban, I believe that trying to enforce a noncompete-adjacent action like this would open you up to being sued by the employees who would have been hired, and the hiring company, in California court.
Along with the rest of the top 5 states where almost everyone lives in the USA?
Have you ever even lived for a significant amount of time outside of California? Ever try New York, Texas, or Florida? Nobody is "shackled to their workstation" there either. California leads in unaffordable living and wealth inequality, and it's not even because those on top in California are living any better than even the upper middle class elsewhere.
The economy is much more than tech and most of those businesses are not in California and don't want to be.
Noncompete "agreements" are evil and run counter to every redeeming quality that a free market economy has. If your state allows them, they are in favor of indentured servitude, plain and simple. In contrast, California stands as a beacon for those who refuse such chains. We don't just ban noncompetes in California, we actively liberate those who move here from their out-of-state noncompetes.
And contrary to what you'll read on here, California is not just tech. We've got a massive agriculture industry (more than 50% of the country's produce), several of the best universities in the world, the entire entertainment industry (to such a degree that we're killing everyone's accents), one of the top financial sectors, and the largest manufacturing industry in the country. Hell, our restaurants are better than anywhere else in the country: I can walk down the street walk past multiple restaurants that would be the best in the entire state in most of the rest of the country, to a point that I take it for granted until I walk into a random restaurant in the heartland somewhere and expect it to be good.
We treat our companies well and our residents better. Hell, we even treat our non-residents better than any other state, given that our taxes subsidize the existence of the parasitic 41.
When the worst thing about your state is a housing shortage due to everyone wanting to be there, that's glowing praise.
The other 5 states don’t even come close economically. If California were a country it would be the 4th largest economy in the world. Fourth. Largest. Economy.
The next closest state is Texas and it’s down around 9 or 10 at half the GDP…
At the flick of a wrist, any of those handful of businesses can follow Tesla and pull the rug out from under the state. The mind recoils in horror what will happen when the tide goes out.