If you’re a venture capitalist, you dream of backing the next billion-dollar startup to one day feast on the returns of a sale. The buyer? A gargantuan tech company, of course. But these days, Big Tech isn’t buying so much as “acquihiring” the most promising artificial intelligence firms, specialized deals that scoop up the industry’s hottest talent while avoiding antitrust scrutiny, often by leaving behind business operations, a.k.a. the husk of a company.The phenomenon has been great for tech ...