One of the things that article overlooks though is that almost all multinational companies wouldn’t be what they are today without acquisition and inorganic growth.

Even that article says it: if Google avoided acquisitions they wouldn’t have Android and YouTube. Disney wouldn’t have Pixar and Fox. The biggest companies in the world would be different - and for the surviving multinationals often their acquisitions defined their current business.

Some of this is successful, some of this is a failure, but it’s a game that a lot of companies needed to play to achieve their current market position.

In fact, in some markets not touching M&A means not growing your core business (eg some retailers), and some big businesses may not exist anymore if they didn’t do the acquisitions they did.