Clearly you're not as keen business-wise as noted terrible CEO Gil Amelio, who correctly saw that NeXt being in the dumpster was a good thing, since they needed its software, not its revenues.
I'm not sure I understand your point. Yes, likely if NeXT had been doing better financially Apple couldn't have afforded it. You can check NeXT's aborted S-1 here.[1] They had an accumulated deficit of $273 million as of a few month's earlier, were almost out of cash, and were losing money.
Apple's purchase price of $400 million was not exactly a bonanza to their investors...
Apple's purchase price of $400 million was not exactly a bonanza to their investors...
[1]https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...