I mean, Google just paid a ton of money to acquihire this team, and then the acquihired team is going to turn around and fire all the people Google paid for? That doesn't sound like an arrangement Google would be happy with.

(Which is to say, with more generality: people who get acquihired are basically temporarily invulnerable to office politics.)

I'd keep them on board but I'd get rid of that backdoor and encourage them to adapt to the new situation, for a number of reasons:

- 'OldTubers' vs. the new Googlers is a clear us v. them thing. Bad for culture, especially when you get privileges on top. - Their plan was actually successful so there must have been a thing or two to learn on the product side, even if it's as simple as accepting engineering input and understanding the difficulty of maintaining stuff (as opposed to relying on the analytics). - There's some good thinking and ingenuity in there, despite the methodology.

I'd want to keep hold of that talent while dealing with burgeoning elitism. Up to them to quit if they don't like the changes. Fire them if their contribution begins to suffer.

This may be a management culture thing, but I would regard that happening as a massive red flag and immediately start looking to quit.

Formal warning, perhaps, if it actually contravenes a written policy, but in this case is unlikely to have been one. There was no actual financial or reputation loss to the company.

It doesn't seem though, from the story, that the 'OldTubers' group was exposed. It seems like the 'why' was more important than the 'how'