About 15 years ago I worked for a biotech firm They laid off about 1--15% pf the workforce in October, Everybody left got a 5% raise on Jan 1. Someone lower than me was complaining about the raise.I told him I was glad that I was gratefulI didn't get laid off and the 5% was fine. On Valentines Day, the cut another 33% including me and him. We had found out that they were not paying bills, so when we got our severance pay checks, everyone rushed to the bank to cash theirs the next day. I cashed in my stock options as soon as I could and made only about $7K. About 2 years later the stock jumped $1 in a day (from $5/share to $6.share. Yep, they had been sold. I heard that the new company only kept about 5 people and they had to move to MA from CA. It again got sold to a large pharma giant.