Comment by kirillzubovsky | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kirillzubovsky | Hacker News Reader

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This is almost entirely not true.

Under Satya, Microsoft went on a shopping spree. They bought a ton of startups: Minecraft, Github, Skype, Sunrise, LinkedIn (tnx comments!), Yammer ... and along with those it bought a mapping company, a multitude of ad/marketing companies, educational startups, AI startups...etc, etc. Those are just the ones we know about.

Update: here's a list of all MS acquisitions. It's rather lengthly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

Did you know they almost bought Twitch.tv, but Amazon had more money?

And as far as locking them in the same building, that's not exactly operationally efficient in 2018. But they seemed to have done their best at either merging the products right away, or letting the team run on their own.

So, they did pretty well, according to the plan.

Hmm...

1) Skype was purchased by Ballmer.

2) Most of the ad tech companies were also purchased by Ballmer.

3) Minecraft and Skype are not Bay Area companies

4) LinkedIn was a public company when Microsoft acquired them. So it seems like a stretch to call them a startup.

5) And finally it looks like Microsoft has done acquisitions throughout their existence. In fact, they acquired as many companies in 2007 as they did in 2018 and more in 2007 than 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

It doesn't seem like "buy lots of Bay Area Web 2.0 companies to infuse new talent" is the secret ingredient. Yahoo was the company that probably closest executed the strategy. That didn't go well as we all know.

Man, I worked at aQuantive when it got bought for $6B by Ballmer. They took a $6B write down within a few years. They should have kept their money in the services part of that business instead of the second-rate ad tech.

The other key part of that idea is the “lead shield” from the dinosaur parent company, and we know from many accounts that being integrated into the Yahoo culture is what killed their acquisitions.

Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, before the 2014 Ballmer/Nadella change-over. Also, Minecraft isn't exactly a start-up, but more of a celebrity among gaming projects, ranking closer to an endorsement/sponsorship deal.

Not to mention LinkedIn :)

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