[georgemcbay]

Pretty easy position to take once you've already earned your own "fuck you" money.

I do sometimes wonder why these sorts of acquisitions remain so prevalent though when minus a few notable exceptions the life cycle tends to consist of a company paying many millions or even a cool billion for some tech in a stack they don't even use (only to kill it soon after) plus a handful of employees that tend to stick around barely engaged until just long enough to unlock whatever golden handcuffs they have on.

Seems like way more often than not they are failures more on the side of the acquiring party though I guess there may be some valid (though ultimately unfortunate and cynical) reasons for participating like nipping a potential future competitor in the bud.

[drusenko]

Almost all popular Google products (other than search and Gmail) have come from acquisition: Maps, Analytics, Google Apps, Android, Blogger, Picasa, YouTube, Postini, reCAPTCHA, etc.

My good friends Robby & Wayne's company, Zenter, was acquired by Google in 2007. While Robby has since left, Wayne is now a very respected eng manager in charge of a very important project, so I would argue that acquisition was successful for them.

So while many acquisitions do not work out well (and usually loudly), it would be a big mistake to pretend that applies to all acquisitions.

[bambax]

You're right; some acquisitions survive as real products and it would be a mistake to call them "failures".

I guess what the OP means is that price alone is not a sufficient criteria to judge whether an acquisition was a success. If you sell your company for a large amount of money, but it gets shut down, that's not "success" (although it's certainly much better for you than closing down without any money).

[shalmanese]

Same with Adobe. Everything in their creative suite except Illustrator was the result of an acquisition. They had a lot of botched and failed acquisitions over the years but there's no question they wouldn't be where they were today if not for a series of very smart acquisitions.

[jlodwick]

> Pretty easy position to take once you've already earned your own "fuck you" money.

True, though I certainly wish I'd known this position before I earned mine.

[mikeash]

I'd wager that most acquisitions work out fine, you just rarely hear about it, because "this is a sensible acquisition that is highly likely to work out fine" is not usually newsworthy.

[georgemcbay]

On the one hand I'm sure you are right and this is partly confirmation bias. On the other hand I've seen a few acquisitions first hand (though never as a founder) and they were universally disastrous due mostly to poor culture fit which I suspect is common given the differences in how small and large companies operate (as noted in the original post). So that also colors my negative opinion.

[coolsunglasses]

At my last startup we had a near miss on an acquisition that would've been a total waste, but the other suitors we were talking to would've meant a good leveraging of the technology.

I think realistically the companies most desperate to make an acquisition of tech and product talent are least equipped to make good use of it.

As an ex-CTO I could very easily see an acquisition going well.

[ucee054]

Acquisition has been studied in the business schools, though not specifically in the context of tech companies (as far as I know).

The deal is often overpriced based on "synergy" between the companies that does not exist.

But the deal happens because of perverse incentives for the management of the buying company.

The buying company often loses money and would have been better off not buying.