acquihire

verb
/əkˈhaɪɚ/US/əkˈhaɪə/UK

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.

  1. derived from *kewHs-
  2. inherited from *hūzijaną
  3. inherited from *hūʀiju — “payment
  4. inherited from hȳr — “employment for wages; pay for service; interest on money lent
  5. inherited from hire
  6. compounded as acquihire — “acquire + hire

Definitions

  1. To acquire a company, in particular a small startup, to recruit its employees, rather…

    To acquire a company, in particular a small startup, to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.

  2. An acquisition of a company to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or…

    An acquisition of a company to recruit its employees, rather than for its products or services.

    • 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.
    • 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.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for acquihire. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA