[tachyonbeam]

Would you say that building technology with the hope of being acquired is probably a bad strategy? It seems to me it should be safer to try to build some kind of product/service using that technology, that way you have at least your product as a revenue channel, and your product can make a business case for the technology you're developing as well (as well as server to increase awareness).

[rapind]

I hope so. Building for acquisition strikes me as studying for the exam.

Resources may be better spent checking the boxes of a potential acquirer instead of working on real problems except if and when they intersect. Like valuing people with acquisition experience from the other side more than the producers of tech or solving a real problem.

[AndrewKemendo]

"Serial Founders" with multiple exits seem to do exactly that, but it looks like alchemy to me, and takes a certain type of person to do it.

In the ~13 years I've been doing startups I've only run into a few of these people who can pretty consistently build companies for acquisition, and I'm not really sure if it's just survivor bias in a growth market or they really have some secret formula.