$2k is not going to keep someone with a lot of upward mobility on a sinking ship. Especially not when you're talking about someone already making a comfortable 6-figure income. There's a huge negative feedback loop here because the "best" people tend to leave early because they have the most opportunity. Then of course, the best people leaving hurts the productivity of the whole company. This is precisely why big retention bonuses for CEOs of sinking ships are paid out. First, if the CEO bails it has a huge negative affect on morale which can put the fleeing of talent into hyper-mode, and secondly, you need someone with the ability to break that negative feedback loop, stick through the pain, and turn things around. Maybe that means giving a few key engineers significant bonuses, but it certainly doesn't mean giving "ok" engineers $2k bonuses.