Microsoft-Inflection AI license and hire (March 2024)
Microsoft hired most of Inflection AI's team, including co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, who became CEO of Microsoft AI. It paid about $620 million for a non-exclusive license to Inflection's models rather than buying the company.
Inflection kept its legal shell but lost its core team and pivoted to an enterprise business.
The deal set the template for hiring a startup's talent and licensing its technology without a merger filing.
It is the first well-known version of the structure Nvidia now uses with Poolside: license plus talent, no acquisition.
