Was at Argo and left latitude somewhat recently. You are spot on, most of Argo leadership is gone, most of the autonomy folks got picked up by either VW or Ford Latitude.

I don’t get it. Are you implying that they folded the venture at that cost, the started it again?

I get that HR and leadership are hard, but this seems far fetched.

What's the difference in keeping the same 550 people working under the old name with a $2.7bn cost sunk into it, and just acknowledging the $2.7bn as a loss and moving the 550 people to work under a different name.

It's not like the name was a significant part of their product and they'd now have to spend a similar amount to get to a similar stage in their research and development, is it?

Firing them hiring is a long way from free. Then add in the company start up costs and legal fees etc.

Maybe I’m the mug, but that seems wasted money.

When you are burning billions, the costs listed above seem to be treated as a rounding error.

It means they now have 100% ownership instead of whatever legacy rights were there from their previous investment.

It actually could be pretty lucrative. Not only have they gotten VW out of the mix, but they can renegotiate the salaries and stock options again. The market for talent is very, very different now. And all of those old options that the Argo people took during their first n years? They're now worthless so the management doesn't have to share ownership with them either.

This could have been entirely driven by business considerations.

This is all possible. There is a comment here by someone who knows one of the rehires and their contract is better for the employee. One data point etc.

It was said above, in big corporations these are decisions by different people. You make it sound like there's one undecided person taking all the shots.