How Amazon's $97 million Eero acquisition screwed employees and minted millionaires

When Amazon announced a deal to acquire Eero, the maker of a groundbreaking WiFi system, it sounded like a classic Silicon Valley success story: a promising startup is acquired by the biggest bidder in the land, and everyone rolls around in cash. But that is not this story. This story is about investors losing tens of millions of dollars and dozens of employees left with meaningless stock.

According to confidential documents viewed by Mashable, Amazon acquired Eero for $97 millionEero executives brought home multi-million dollar bonuses and eight-figure salary increases. Everyone else, however, didn’t fare quite so well. Investors took major hits, and the Amazon acquisition rendered Eero stock worthless: $0.03 per share, down from a common stock high of $3.54 in July 2017. It typically would have cost around $3 for employees to exercise their stock, meaning they would actually lose money if they tried to cash out.  Read more...