Question
The High Growth Handbook suggests handling M&As for the purpose of acquiring skilled personnel through a process known as Hiring M&As, also called team M&As or acqui-hires. This process is done to acquire the personnel that another company has. For instance, if a company wants to build a machine learning product and a failing startup has outstanding machine learning and AI engineers, that company can buy the startup just to add those engineers to the team. The product of the acquired company can be kept, but it's not the main point.
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Hiring M&As – These M&As, also called team M&As or acqui-hires, are done to get the personnel that another company has. If a company wants to build a machine learning product and a failing startup has outstanding machine learning and AI engineers, that company can buy the startup just to add those engineers to the team. Their product can be kept, but it's not the main point. Product M&As – These are done for the sake of a piece of IP. The three M&As from Google above are a great example. If a company wants to build out an email application, sure, it can do it itself, but many times it will be far easier, faster, and cheaper to just use the work someone else already did. Strategic M&As – These are usually about competition. They can either be to eliminate a competitor, such as Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, or to prevent Big Scary Company X from entering the market by acquiring the same company being acquired now.
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