littleco

BigCo acquires LittleCo after LittleCo starts killing BigCo with the new fancy LittleCo process/machine.

From that perspective, the tasks that you did at LittleCo are seen as things that could, if not should, be automated.

The buyout terms required all LittleCo employees to be hired by BigCo.

I'm in a BigCo and every time we acquire a LittleCo I get massive culture envy.

Also: consider the possibility that bigco bought your littleco not to nuture/integrate/leverage it, as they said in the press release, but to kill it.

This is also why BigCo CEOs rarely do well at LittleCo.

And that's why boring enterprise software from MegaCorp still generates huge revenue, because they can go tell a GE, Chase, Honda or McDonalds something LittleCo can't.

I've worked for LittleCo, and now I work for BigCo, a F100.

Then, lo and behold within a short time most of the step-children start getting the hint and either flee to a competitor, form another LittleCo, find a new line of work, or some combination of those things.

BigCo also has its own internal group "A" of people who were doing the same thing as the folks from LittleCo, but who weren't killing it.

"Apple: Samsung stole our technology and gave it to LittleCo, who were are suing separately for tortious interference with a contract." The point is that if there really are so many entities just trying to abuse the system, they don't need patents to do it.

BigCo knows that it can't really allow the step-children to mingle with the rank and file or else the step-childred might infect them with freedom of thought or whatever it was that enabled LittleCo to beat BigCo at "X", or else there will be a TPS report revolt, or something.