[revelation]

Devils advocate would be of course that you are buying a team that didn't execute, and paying a lot of premium on it.

[nostrademons]

I think that to get on the radar screen for acquihires, you have to have had at least some success executing, i.e. you launched a product that is usable. You may not have launched the right product, you may have failed to find a market, but it shows that you can build something and deliver it to the public.

There are many teams, particularly in big companies, that fail to do even that.

[rdouble]

Weren't there a half dozen Facebook acquihires where the company hadn't launched any product at all? A former coworker coined them "fist-bump acquisitions" because the defining characteristic was that one of the founders was always a former roommate of Zuck or other early employee.

[nostrademons]

Possibly, and if that's the case those were probably pretty stupid acquisitions for the company. (And arguably Zuck not doing his fiduciary duty.)