Huh, this is pretty interesting. I'm not really familiar with Smash.gg, but if what people in this thread are saying is true, that it's a fairly straightforward

Huh, this is pretty interesting. I'm not really familiar with Smash.gg, but if what people in this thread are saying is true, that it's a fairly straightforward platform that could be easily reproduced by Microsoft, then it seems like this acquisition was almost altruistically motivated. It feels like it's easy for a lot of big companies to make better competing products and drive the little guy into extinction, but this acqusition move feels like the company encourages startups and isn't entirely motivated by greed. But I may be biased; I already do like Microsoft, Nadella, and what the company does and how far it has come since the Ballmer days.