# Brendan Cody-Kenny: When a software company is acquired, the retention package is often built around one or two named people

Technical Due Diligence for Software M&A https://sub.xiliary.com/p/brendancodykenny

### 2026-08-05 update #due-diligence #key-person #m-and-a #retention
When a software company is acquired, the retention package is often built around one or two named people
- 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.

https://sub.xiliary.com/p/brendancodykenny/posts/11/when-a-software-company-is-acquired-the-retention-package-is