I don't understand why he cites Google's market cap since that doesn't really support the purchase cost as "pocket change." Google has a free cash flow of ~$2.

I don't understand why he cites Google's market cap since that doesn't really support the purchase cost as "pocket change." Google has a free cash flow of ~$2.8 billion [1], so no, it wouldn't be pocket change. Twitter's data worth tens of billions? Well, CNBC is saying they've sold their data for +$47 million [2] but I don't find any clear indication of that on the SEC filing [3]. A part of me doesn't believe that data would be worth billions to Google's search team seeing that they made ~$13.8 billion just on their own data. Personally speaking (as in I have no data supporting the practicality of these thoughts), where Google could profit in buying Twitter is in using tweets for machine learning conversations, connecting geography with social interests & economic impact (Japan loves anime, US loves football, etc), and asset acquisition. [1] Pg.8 - http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q3_google_earnings_slides.pdf http://investor.google.com/pdf/2013Q3_google_earnings_slides... [2] http://www.cnbc.com/id/101103596 http://www.cnbc.com/id/101103596 [3] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm#toc564001_12 http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/0001193125133...