From Kath's post:

 "Good luck defending those patents as poet runs out of money.  I am going to vote yes."

Let's explore this a bit. A patent and talent poaching thought here:

Every element of the OI, the Lightbar, etc. that is present today probably had a few ways to do it. The "best" may have been a bit cheaper to make, a bit more fault tolerant, or whatever. There are multiple options, and they are expensive to explore in R&D.

A patent workaround from another company would be far easier to accomplish by hiring a manager who knows all the best engineers.  When you lose an executive, you often lose a few workers who have a good relationship with that executive. This is an ongoing risk with small companies trying to change the world.

When a headhunter calls, and the target says "I can't leave all my options on the table", a deep pocketed tech company can say, "what would it take to change that picture for you?"

POET is not equipped to throw cash at this sort of problem. I know we've been through some pain, and long waits, and so on, but we are there now, the bigs are marching to our door. Any top exec at those bigs is saying "can't we just buy them? Or can't we do this in house? Or, weren't we working on something like that with so and so? Can xxx get it done?

Don't you think Samsung wishes it could go back in time and buy Qualcomm? Or raid their talent? A few years ago, there was litigation, claiming Qualcomm charges too much as a sole source supplier of the best chips. It's laughable. I am sure there was more to it, but that was the jist of it. "They are too good and we don't want to pay!". 

Welcome to the big leagues. Show me the money! Well, that's coming, and our little POET needs to stay intact. Work with big partners, plot the smart course.

I'd be OK with one or two unnamed execs retiring, maybe these repriced options will hasten that day; a hard pill to swallow, but we have an interesting future ahead that may require some changes, but not because we are bleeding talent at any level, please.