2024$650M
Microsoft ← Inflection AI
Paid to "license" tech and hire the entire AI team including CEO Mustafa Suleyman
Suleyman became EVP & CEO of Microsoft AI. Instant world-class AI leadership.
The definitive guide
What Is a Liftout?
A liftout is hiring an entire high-performing team from another company—not just individuals who used to work together, but the whole team with their trust, chemistry, and track record intact.
In 2024, Microsoft paid $650M for Inflection AI's team. Google paid $2.7B for Character.AI's founders. Polsinelli hired 47 lawyers from Holland & Knight in a single move. These aren't acquisitions—they're liftouts.
Individual job search can be isolating
Updating your resume in secret. Interviewing while pretending everything's fine. Making a major career decision without being able to talk to anyone. There's another way.
Going alone
- Navigating the process in isolation
- Unknown team dynamics at new company
- Starting from scratch building trust
- No one to compare notes with
Moving together
- Familiar faces in an unfamiliar process
- People you trust from day one
- Collective leverage when negotiating
- Colleagues who get what you're going through
Building new teams takes time
Individual hiring works—it's how most companies grow. But assembling strangers into a cohesive team has real costs. Liftouts offer an alternative when speed and chemistry matter.
12 mo
average time for new hires to reach full productivity
Gallup
43%
of team performance depends on psychological safety
Google Project Aristotle
6-12 mo
for new teams to move past forming and storming stages
Tuckman research
46%
performance decline when star performers move alone
Groysberg (Harvard)
The research behind liftouts
Academic research explains why established teams can hit the ground running.
46%
Star performance decline after moving firms
Groysberg (Harvard)
Unless they bring their team with them.
12 months
Time for new hires to reach peak performance
Gallup
Teams that move together skip this entirely.
43%
Of team performance tied to psychological safety
Google Project Aristotle
Built over years, preserved in a liftout.
$240K
Average cost of a bad hire
SHRM
Teams have a proven track record.
2024 Examples
Liftouts happening right now
Not ancient history—these deals happened this year.
2024$2.7B
Google ← Character.AI
Brought back founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas—who originally created transformer architecture at Google
Regained the inventors of the technology powering modern AI.
202447 lawyers
Polsinelli ← Holland & Knight
Largest law firm group move of 2024—30 partners moved as a cohesive unit
Instant market presence and client relationships.
202425 lawyers
Paul Hastings ← Vinson & Elkins
8 partners and their full finance team in Dallas/Houston—largest practice group move in Texas history
Became a Texas powerhouse overnight.
Skip forming, storming, and norming
Psychologist Bruce Tuckman identified four stages every team goes through. New teams spend months in conflict before becoming productive. Liftout teams skip straight to performing.
SKIP
Forming
Getting acquainted, uncertain
SKIP
Storming
Conflict, competition, decreased productivity
SKIP
Norming
Establishing shared values and trust
START HERE
Performing
True interdependence, high productivity
Source: Tuckman, B.W. (1965). "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups"
Why companies hire teams
When speed and chemistry matter, liftouts offer distinct advantages.
Faster time to productivity
New hires typically take 12 months to reach peak performance. Teams that move together can be productive from day one.
Gallup research
Preserve psychological safety
Google's Project Aristotle found this is the #1 factor in team performance. It takes years to build.
43% of performance variance
Verified track record
Instead of hoping new hires will work well together, you can see a team's actual history of collaboration.
Reduced hiring risk
Transfer client relationships
In professional services, relationships are the business. Teams bring their networks with them.
Why law firm laterals work
Skip the team-building phase
New teams typically spend months in Tuckman's forming and storming stages. Liftout teams start performing.
Tuckman's model
Built-in collaboration
Companies with strong collaboration are five times more likely to be high-performing. Liftouts come with it built in.
i4cp research
The Framework
The four stages of a successful liftout
Harvard Business Review research identified four stages that determine whether a liftout succeeds or fails.
1
Courtship
Before the move
Team leader and company align on opportunity, goals, and strategy. The team leader begins confidential conversations with team members.
Key insight: Most liftouts fail here—from misaligned expectations, not integration issues.
2
Leadership Integration
First weeks
Team leader builds relationships with new company leadership and secures access to decision-makers.
Key insight: Access to senior executives is the #1 factor cited for liftout success.
3
Operational Integration
First months
Team secures resources, maintains client relationships, and establishes autonomy within the new environment.
Key insight: Give clear goals but latitude in execution—don't micromanage what already works.
4
Cultural Integration
Ongoing
Through demonstrated results, the team earns credibility and becomes part of the broader organization.
Key insight: Credibility isn't transferred—it's re-earned through performance.
Groysberg & Abrahams, "Lift Outs: How to Acquire a High-Functioning Team" — HBR, 2006
Industries where liftouts thrive
Anywhere relationships and team expertise drive value, liftouts happen.
Technology & AI
Microsoft paid $650M for Inflection AI's team
AI talent wars driving $1-2M per engineer valuations
Law Firms
Top 50 firms hired 900+ partners laterally in 2024
Group moves up 13.9% year-over-year
Investment Banking
Lehman's lifted team went from #8 to #1 in rankings
Teams bring portable client relationships
Management Consulting
Practice groups move with methodologies intact
Industry expertise travels with the team
Healthcare
Surgical teams move to perform complex procedures
Trust is life-or-death—literally
Private Equity
Deal teams move with sector knowledge and networks
Relationships are the entire business
The platform for team-based hiring
Until now, liftouts happened through backchannels
We built the first platform where teams can signal they're open to opportunities—confidentially—and companies can find proven teams instead of gambling on individuals.
Sources & Further Reading
Academic Research
- Groysberg: Chasing Stars (Princeton, 2010)
- HBR: Lift Outs (2006)
- Google: Project Aristotle
- Tuckman, B.W. (1965). Developmental Sequence in Small Groups
2024 Market Data
Hiring & Onboarding
- SHRM: Cost of a Bad Hire
- Leadership IQ: New Hire Failure Rates
- LinkedIn: Culture Fit Research
- i4cp: High-Performing Organizations