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Acqhire is a neologism created from a combination of the words acquire and hire that is used to refer to one company’s acquisition of another in order to gain talented employees. Acqhiring is common in the tech world, where large tech companies often purchase startups to gain access to a cool concept – and the expertise of the people who created it.
Acqhire is also known as acquihire and, less commonly, acquhire. The term may be hyphenated as acq-hire or even acqui-hire.
Techopedia Explains Acqhire
The term acqhire is largely attributed to Rex Hammock, who coined it in a 2005 post on rexblog.com. It has gained traction as large tech companies – most notably, Google – continue to absorb small startups for their expertise. A 2011 article in the New York Times wrote:
"Companies like Facebook, Google and Zynga are so hungry for the best talent that they are buying start-ups to get their founders and engineers – and then jettisoning their products. Some technology blogs call it being ‘acqhired.’"
