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Tech M&A guy here. This is survivorship bias at its finest. How about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram? Google's acquisition of YouTube? Android? DoubleCli
by mbesto 6y ago
Tech M&A guy here.
This is survivorship bias at its finest.
How about Facebook's acquisition of Instagram? Google's acquisition of YouTube? Android? DoubleClick? Amazon's acquisition of Twitch? I could go on.
For the record, yes there are VERY many acquisitions that go wrong, especially when you get to the $B+ value. The parent's characterization seems in line with the "no one ever got fired for using IBM" and that sentiment is grossly unjustified for M&A. There are a bunch of other factors that go into corporate strategy. One example - buying a competitor to eliminate competition and thus protecting future dollars.
- sumedh 6y ago> Facebook's acquisition of Instagram? Google's acquisition of YouTube? Android? DoubleClick? Amazon's acquisition of Twitch? I could go on. These examples are not comparable to what the OP was saying, e.g AOL/Time-Warner, Compaq/HP are mergers of giants with lot of employees.
- mbesto 6y agoOk fine. Here ya go: BoA/Merrill Lynch Shell/Royal Dutch Sanofi/Avantis Glaxo/SmithKline P&G/Gillette Roche/Genetech Exxon/Mobil Conoco/Philips Disney/Fox AT&T has had so many successful mergers that the government has basically had to split them up every time because it made them into a monopoly. Should I go on? EDIT: PS - DoubelClick in 2007 was considered "BIG". It had 1200 employees and was bought for $3.1B. Which was A LOT at the time.
- sumedh 6y agoThose are good examples, you should have included them in the first post.