I don't recall those episodes, but I would say that in real life, yes, larger companies can 'kick the tires' for a long time, costing the target immense amounts

I don't recall those episodes, but I would say that in real life, yes, larger companies can 'kick the tires' for a long time, costing the target immense amounts of focus/time, then walk away. Older incumbent companies, especially, may have giant 'business development' teams who almost recreationally do deep x-rays of emerging threats/opportunities. All their staffing/trips/flirtatious-discussions/legally-drafted-non-binding-letters-of-intent may be a rounding error in their bottom line, a cheap research expense. They can go through all the motions of an acquisition, appearing serious to the hopeful founders, with a negligible interest in actually completing the deal. I mean sure, they'd bite if they saw a can't-lose bonanza - their talks are panning for gold in your stream, before buying or even renting your land. Even if 99/100 envisioned deals eventually fall-through, they're just happy to learn all the proprietary business internals. See also: ~pg's 'Don't Talk To Corp Dev': http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://www.paulgraham.com/corpdev.html