{"id":1916,"date":"2015-06-04T21:37:57","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T04:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmtechblog.com\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2015-06-04T21:37:57","modified_gmt":"2015-06-05T04:37:57","slug":"microsoft-offered-each-mojang-employee-300k-to-stay-after-acquisition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/?p=1916","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft offered each Mojang employee $300k to stay after acquisition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft dropped a load of cash on Mojang when they purchased the company and their games. More specifically, they were after <em>Minecraft<\/em> and all the goods its name produces. That, to Microsoft, was worth $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>With massive acquisitions like this one, it\u2019s not uncommon for the purchasing company to offer the staff of the company being purchased a sort of retention bonus. \u201cStay with us for six months and you\u2019ll receive $100,000,\u201d for instance.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft wanted the Mojang team to stay after the purchase. Some did, others didn\u2019t. The details of the acquisition are starting to boil up thanks to a book\u2019s publication.<\/p>\n<p><em>Wired<\/em> has posted an excerpt from <em>Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus \u201cNotch\u201d Persson and the Game that Changed Everything<\/em> by former Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson. That excerpt contains a bit about what Microsoft offered to retain Mojang\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In all likelihood, Microsoft was well aware of how difficult it would be to retain the trust and loyalty of Mojang\u2019s staff. Making sure people kept quiet was one thing. More importantly, both companies had to ensure that everyone didn\u2019t simply hand in their notice and leave the moment the deal went through. The solution was to deploy the one thing this deal had plenty of\u2014money. Everyone at Mojang was made the same offer: whoever stayed on board for at least six months after the sale would be rewarded with two million Swedish crowns, approximately three hundred thousand dollars, after taxes. A small fortune was being tendered as a peace offering, in other words. But for some, saying yes was far from a given.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The excerpt indicates that Mojang\u2019s staff were generally unhappy about their base salaries. It suggests that the company\u2019s three shareholders, Markus Persson, Carl Manneh and Jakob Porser, make all the money off of <em>Minecraft<\/em> while its employees simply collect salaries and meager bonuses.<\/p>\n<p>Who knows? The excerpt paints a picture of frustration within Mojang\u2019s ranks, though the company managed to hold almost all of its employees until its sale.<\/p>\n<p>The whole thing is really interesting and worth a read if you have the time. I\u2019m sure Notch tells a very different story, but we\u2019ll have to wait for his book to learn about it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"infinite-scroll-metadata\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"sourcevia-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"sourcevia fCaps fLS0\"><span class=\"label fLS1\">SOURCE<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2015\/06\/minecraft-book-excerpt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WIRED<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"sourcevia fCaps fLS0\"><span class=\"label fLS1\">VIA<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.destructoid.com\/all-mojang-staff-were-offered-300k-not-to-leave-company-293284.phtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DESTRUCTOID<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft dropped a load of cash on Mojang when they purchased the company and their games. More specifically, they were after Minecraft and all the goods its name produces. That, to Microsoft, was worth $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmtech.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}