Do you have any data showing acqui-hiring of $1 billion or more? I've never heard of such an amount and retention after an acquisition is really, really hard. Seems crazy to spend so much only to have people leave after 1-2 years (or less depending on the company).
Uber, Apple, Tesla, and every car company would be interested.
You're buying both a base platform / proof of concept+ implementation and the key individuals responsible for creating it. Then training your people on the platform with the deeper knowledge from the key individuals in the 1-2 years you've got them employed.
If you can buy a breakthrough and enough knowledge transfer to get your people operational on adapting it, it's worth it even if you don't get any additional breakthroughs?
While the founders and first few employees may leave after an acquisition, preferring to work for themselves, everyone after that is an employee and, as long as they are managed and compensated well, will generally not care so much who the company's owner is.
Although the "technology" more or less worked, it was discarded and re-written or substantially changed.
In the case of Google, I'm thinking of AdMob.
In the case of Yahoo, I'm thinking of the 2-sided ad exchange network they bought and then ripped out the 2-sided features.