[hn_throwaway_99]

I feel like you just cherry picked from my examples. YouTube was certainly successful - Google bought them because their own Google Video competitor was a flop. DoubleClick was also obviously huge. Where 2 had a successful product, it just wasn't web based (nor do I think free), so didn't have anywhere near the distribution that Google enabled once the team ported it to run in a browser.

[magicalist]

I think there is a difference in at least degree here (maybe in kind, idk) that's lost by lumping them purely on acquisition or not, but I do largely agree with your point.

But just wanted to correct for the historical record:

> Where 2 had a successful product, it just wasn't web based (nor do I think free), so didn't have anywhere near the distribution that Google enabled once the team ported it to run in a browser.

Where 2 did not have a product, successful or not. They were an unreleased demo looking for investors and luckily got into a room with Larry Page of 2004.

[happymellon]

Indeed, I think they used bad examples as neither Android or Where 2 were successful, but it also shows that Google has done a mix of buying something successful to fill a gap or find someone with a good tech that they help to get over the line and make successful.

Meta has not shown the second part.

[happymellon]

I "cherry picked" from your examples because they weren't really good examples.

You said

> buying a successful business and keeping it successful for over a decade.

Meta bought already successful companies.

Google has purchased successful businesses, but they also purchased companies that weren't and managed to get them into massive money makers.