Fair points, appreciate the insight. I think living in a tech bubble city clouds my thinking a bit much.

The only real example I have good knowledge of (1 of 1 cases) is a tech friend who worked for a firm acquired by a company wanting to build out data centers, and in the end everyone left after their acquisition stock awards vested, before really adding value to the corporation and delivering on the promise, because the company did not have a "tech r&d" comp plan in place to keep the subject matter experts employed. In the end the project and the DC expansion fell short.