> -all existing investors and vested employee/equity holders are paid out;
But the statement from Cognition was:
> 100% of Windsurf employees will participate financially in this deal
> 100% of Windsurf employees will have vesting cliffs waived for their work to date
> 100% of Windsurf employees will receive fully accelerated vesting for their work to date
"Participate financially" means what exactly? They could all get a coupon for a free doughnut, and that statement would be true.
I'm not saying the employees are getting nothing, or even a raw deal. I'm saying we have no idea if the deal is good for them, without details.
> theoretically the remaining company could pay accelerate vesting, then pay out the cash to their remaining employees, and then shut down, to give everyone the same exit as an acquisition, or better.
unlikely that will happen. More likely the investors and VCs will take the lion's share of the $2.5B, that is what they do. That is why they exist. And they'll distribute as thin a slice as possible to the employees.
Historically, when a company gets acquired, the terms of the acquisition vary wildly. Many acquisitions over the past few years have led to a payout of all equity holders, pennies for employees, and layoffs for much of the existing team. This outcome is no worse than an existing acquisition--people just want details because of the new structure. My point is that this is financially no worse than an existing acquisition. It just _feels_ worse because of how it's structured.
And to your last paragraph, read reference [1]. The distribution of that 2.5B is in accordance to the existing cap table; it will make sense once you read that tweet. You must allocate money according to the cap table, and so that allocation is already determined in a company's previous funding rounds.