First of all take it with a grain of salt. That said, there are at least a couple of ways to look at it: 1) There are reports that Google offered some of its

First of all take it with a grain of salt. That said, there are at least a couple of ways to look at it: 1) There are reports that Google offered some of its product managers tens of millions of dollars to keep them from joining Twitter. If that's how they're valuing talent, then $200M is in the ballpark for Color's "superstar team" combined with some very interesting IP, 2) Smart investors described Color's technology as breakthrough and potentially "the next Google". Even accounting for some hyperbole, suppose that it really is groundbreaking for reasons that us mere mortals can't fully grok. In that case, adding it to Google's arsenal and combining it with all their other assets (and proven engineering and operations strength) could be a multi-billion-dollar win and a big addition to Google+. Or not, as the case may be; but making a risk/reward tradeoff, it could have looked attractive.