Igor Letina

I don't think AI knows what "intuitively" means.

The Authority imposed a penalty on the acquiring firm. Previously, these acquisitions were not looked at.

*Killer Acquisitions* news: the French Competition Authority has for the first time sanctioned a non-notifiable killer acquisition.

Source: www.clearygottlieb.com/news-and-ins...

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

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YouTube video by CEPR & VideoVox Economics AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers

Next was a jam-packed panel on the competition risks of AI acquihires with @florianederer.bsky.social, @lugaricano.bsky.social, @igorletina.bsky.social, @imarinescu.bsky.social, Hans Zenger, Jonathan Kanter, and @cristinacaffarra.bsky.social at the @cepr.org www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zrS... (4/7)

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles, and Economic Spillovers. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webina... Antitrust agencies are increasingly confronted with “acquihires” of AI start-ups — yet most cases so far have been waved through under the banner of “uncertainty.” A decade ago, similar caution around...

Excited to moderate this panel on "AI Acquihires: Competition Risks, Talent Battles and Economic Spillovers" with the antitrust all-star team of Kanter, Garicano, Marinescu, Letina, and Zenger.

Wednesday, 8 October 2025
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (ET)

Registration:
cepr-org.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

How about this: whoever has an H1B and an employment contract in the US gets an automatic work permit in Europe. No bureaucracy, no nothing. US firms can simply tell their stranded workers they can work from one of their offices in Europe.

Link: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c3e8...

Very happy to see two of my papers cited in the recent CMA report on "Investment and competition over the business lifecycle."

The report provides an excellent overview of the literature. Thanks to @jschneebacher.bsky.social and coauthors for preparing it!

A new article in the WSJ on reverse acquihires. The main point it makes is that one group that loses out in a reverse acquihire are the employees who are left behind. This will make it more difficult for future startups to attract employees.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-r...

I've heard from a few people that they use the same approach as you. To me, it appears not to be too much different from just sending the bullet points in the first place.

There are two issues with this. One is that I don't know if I am reading the person's opinion or the chatgpt's opinion. The other is that the prompt is usually much shorter than the output, so that this practice leads to longer e-mails.

I think I also feel like it is not really polite to send AI text to someone and then expect them to read it, especially since AI tends to write too much. I think I'd rather if the person sent me the prompt they used...

I used to love using em-dashes in my prose, but now that it has turned into a chatgtp "tell" I actively avoid it.

A person sends you an e-mail and you notice that it was written by chatgpt. How do you react?

I don't know why, but I tend to have an instinctive negative reaction to it.

Additionally, theory can be a first, cheap test of whether a novel design idea is good and worthwhile to be tested empirically.

But abstract *design* theorizing can be useful.

Empirical work mostly examines institutions, policies and mechanisms that already exist and normally does not generate novel designs. Theory does.

Sources:
- www.reuters.com/technology/m...
- www.reuters.com/technology/a...
- www.reuters.com/technology/a...
- www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
- www.reuters.com/business/goo...

Regarding economic consequences and possible policy implications of acquihires, I have a recent paper (doi.org/10.1016/j.eu...) as do Bar-Isaac, Johnson and Nocke (pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/...).

But there is much that we still don't know and I hope to see more work on the topic!

Compensating equity holders is important for a number of reasons, from eliminating future litigation risk to maintaining good reputation with VCs.

If the buyers were not worried about antitrust scrutiny then they would probably go for a straight acquisition (as big tech did many times in the past before the authorities started scrutinizing startup acquisitions). This is simpler and cleaner for all parties involved.

I think the deals are structured in this way for two reasons: 1) avoiding antitrust scrutiny and 2) compensating startup's equity holders.

In the Meta/Scale AI deal, Meta acquired a minority stake in the startup. Again, this can make economic sense for Meta even if, after key talent has moved to Meta, what remains of the startup is worth very little.

A "reverse acquihire" only lacks 2), which is irrelevant as the only thing left is a husk of the original startup anyway.

In all but the Meta/Scale AI deal, the equity holders were compensated via a tech licensing deal. Whether the tech is worth anything is beside the point.

"Reverse acquihire" is really a misnomer -- a "faux acquihire" would be better. A traditional acquihire has 3 elements: 1) transfer of talent from the startup to the buyer, 2) acquisition and shutdown of the startup, and 3) compensation of startup's equity holders.

A thread on "reverse acquihires" in the AI space.

Reverse acquihires are characterized by two things: 1) the buyer takes over the most important/talented employees and 2) the buyer pays a hefty sum to the target firm via a side deal.

They are becoming common in the AI space:

If you are interested in the economics of talent hoarding, @jmbenkert.bsky.social, Shuo Liu and I have a paper about it that was just accepted at the European Economic Review (and which is open access): doi.org/10.1016/j.eu...

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Meta Poached Apple’s Pang With Pay Package Over $200 Million Meta Platforms Inc. has made unusually high compensation offers to new members of its “superintelligence” team — including a more than $200 million package for a former Apple Inc. distinguished engine...

One thing I have not seen mentioned in the discussion about compensation packages for AI engineers is that firms are willing to pay not just for what value those employees bring to them, but also for the value that their competitors lose. In a sense, firms are partly trying to *hoard AI talent* 1/2

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Refine leverages the best current AI models to draw your attention to potential errors and clarity issues in research paper drafts.

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Gems you find while reading about past inducement prizes/innovation contests: in 1936, Polish mathematician Stanisław Mazur offered a live goose to whoever solved one mathematical problem involving Banach spaces. 37 years later, Swedish mathematician Per Enflo got the goose.