{"url": "https://sub.xiliary.com/p/brendancodykenny/posts/11/when-a-software-company-is-acquired-the-retention-package-is", "author": {"handle": "brendancodykenny", "name": "Brendan Cody-Kenny", "headline": "Technical Due Diligence for Software M&A", "url": "https://sub.xiliary.com/p/brendancodykenny"}, "post": {"id": 11, "url": "https://sub.xiliary.com/p/brendancodykenny/posts/11/when-a-software-company-is-acquired-the-retention-package-is", "kind": "update", "summary": "When a software company is acquired, the retention package is often built around one or two named people", "details": ["Those names come from management interviews and the seller's own account of who matters. The person who can explain the system is not always the person it depends on.", "Whoever merges and reviews changes to the parts that matter can be a contractor, someone you never met, or someone who left a year ago.", "The development record shows who wrote each change, who approved it and what moved with it. A wrong name is paid for twice, in retention and in relearning what they knew."], "links": [], "tags": ["due-diligence", "key-person", "m-and-a", "retention"], "happened_on": "2026-08-05", "created": "2026-09-27T13:15:41.615602Z", "edited": "2026-09-27T13:58:43.354640Z"}}