I've been a part of a couple of these. This statement is somewhere on the spectrum of absolutely naive to willfully disingenuous.
"Someone just paid 2 billion dollars to buy us, but they're not going to change anything, exert any influence or expect payback beyond what we've already been doing."
They don't expect any massive changes in revenue with the companies they acquire. They're willing to hire and invest in revamping/improving their products. Their goal is stable revenue by making customers happy enough to keep paying the maintenance.
They seem to be doing OK with that business model.
I won't say this approach turned out bad for Berkshire or Mr. Buffett personally.
1. a _huge_ amount of trust and respect for the acquired team to not meddle/interfere, and
2. a huge amount of restraint to not force the acquired team into conforming to whatever standards and norms are present in the acquiring team.
Both of these are exceedingly rare.
There definitely are companies that will buy something like this to operate it essentially as an annuity.
The risk to the employees there is if SO essentially becomes done and the owners want to put it in maintenance mode and operate it as a run-out.
Also, it's been 12 years. There's probably a bunch of employees that would like some liquidity.
Why buying a company if you don’t want to make any change? Investment firms make profits by buying low and selling high, and it is hard to sell higher than the purchase price if things are kept the way it is.
The only way this deal is advantageous for both parties is if something changes, and unfortunately that something is probably Stack Overflow.
If the burden gets too big, people won't believe it's worth it, and the whole thing dies.
because it keeps printing money which you can use to acquire other companies. That is what Buffett does.
To collect its revenue.