"The tradeoff for assenting to a period of future ambiguity, of course, is the promise of a large breakup fee if the deal were not to go through. "
Really? I would have thought the tradeoff was promise of the large purchase price.
That fee seems a little excessive. I can see wanted an amount high enough to offset any disruption cause by the merge and then breakup, but that number is quite a bit higher than the disruption that would be caused, I'd think.
I agree. But I think that fee included putting a dollar value on cultural disruption as well.
The rumors circulating around the deal surely did more for their valuation than their business model. They should be paying Google.
Not sure - maybe they went disclosing more strategic items than they would have hoped... I'm really wondering.