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Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

bbc.com

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Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#81

Post by root_axis »

PierceJoy wrote: post #79
root_axis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.

That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under i…

I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#82

Post by mikepurvis »

cmdli wrote: post #76
root_axis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically sup…

It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through c…

You're getting downvoted, but I agree. I think Apple buys much earlier on in the process, like when it tried to buy Audion and then eventually grabbed SoundJam [1] as part of creating the original iTunes.

A more typical brand-preserved acquisition for Apple might have been when it bought Siri (originally an app) or if it had succeeded in buying Dropbox (which probably also would have retained the name).

[1]: https://panic.com/extras/audionstory/

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#83

Post by cafed00d »

root_axis wrote: post #66
ralfd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of this: > Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than those of many of its tech rivals. Microsoft paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp. Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than any of those deals. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if ALL of Apples acquisitions were less than $13…

I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically sup…

Having worked at Amazon’s retail division and at Apple probably gives me some credibility to share a different perspective. Perhaps? :)

Companies that acquire smaller companies and let them run independently typically create a schism in the culture — a division of haves/have-nots and run the risk of overspending without justified returns (Twitch for example retains typically Silicon Valley perks but doesn’t generate as much revenue as Retail site does).

Apple acquisitions on the other hand are solely about technology & integration. I can only think of Beats being their only acquisition that has some independence still. I don’t know what’s going on there though. But I work with a dozen or so teams that were all Apple acquisitions and their entire charter is build for Apple and shut everything else down. Makes it much simpler to organize people/teams and makes purpose of teams super clear from a product perspective.

Amazon, Microsoft and others’ acquisitions make it seem very much like a conglomerate of sorts. I guess that has benefits too — typically not in core technologies though.

Perhaps I just disagree that is hostile or anti-competitive from that perspective. It seem like FB’s acquisition of WhatsApp (and similar moves by others) is more characteristic of anti-competitive behavior (ie capturing potential competitors early etc)

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#84

Post by dang »

root_axis wrote: post #58

The HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust law, but when it comes to Apple we're treated to a litany of "so what?". Honestly, I don't mind Apple's acquisitions (though I do wish I was living in a world where I could buy an M1 the same way I can buy an i7), but I just felt compelled to drop this little nu…

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation.

I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community. Because of this, negative impressions and overgeneralization are much more common than the data really support.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#85

Post by PierceJoy »

root_axis wrote: post #81
PierceJoy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fair point, but I think you've cherry picked a few very notable examples and made an apples to oranges comparison. The other tech companies acquire hundreds of small companies and shut them down. Google is notorious for this. The examples you used were big companies with massive user bases before the acquisition. I suspect Apple's most notable acquisition to date is Beats, and it continues to operate under i…

I didn't cherry-pick anything, those were the examples listed in the article and quoted to me in response to my original comment. As I already stated, I don't have a problem with acquisitions, I am aware that Apple isn't the only company that does this, I'm just pointing out the contrast in tone and rhetoric when it comes to Apple vs pretty much every other big tech company on this website.

No offence, but this latest comment doesn't fit with the original comment I replied to. You were clearly commenting on what Apple does with their acquisitions, not the tone of the response, and that is what I was replying to. You said "What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant" and then went on to detail how you thought they handled their acquisitions differently.

That said, I don't agree that the tone is different for Apple vs any other company. I would have agreed years ago, but it's not longer my observation today.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#86

Post by purpmint008 »

purpmint008 wrote: post #64

Apple is the biggest monopoly in the US right now. Hands down. They get to get away with everything! Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all get hammered on the daily in the US and in the EU. But, Apple is a golden child that can do no wrong. Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?…

Keep downvoting me, fanboys! Long live the resistance!

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#87

Post by zepto »

yanslookup wrote: post #35
zepto wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - I mean I guess you can make it sound bad. But a ‘pivot’ is essentially the same thing - in terms of what gets scrapped. I see an acquihire as the market actually validating your company value even if you haven’t pivoted into a hockey stick product.

How is it validating? In an acquihire situation the company gets bought and then everything but the people is flushed down the toilet. You used to be working on AI powered eye glasses that could tell when fruit is perfectly ripe but now you work on an in house travel expense system the Apple sales people use to log their Uber bills.

> You used to be working on AI powered eye glasses that could tell when fruit is perfectly ripe but now you work on an in house travel expense system the Apple sales people use to log their Uber bills.

Is it that realistic? Why would anyone take such a deal? Why would Apple expect those employees to stay, and given this why would they pay a premium?

My sense was that generally teams are hired because they have proven that they are competent in something specific that Apple wants to do, even if the actual code isn’t used directly.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#88

Post by root_axis »

cmdli wrote: post #76
root_axis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically sup…

It's not the price that necessarily matters but the market share, which is often represented in the price. A company like Facebook (a large social media corporation) buying WhatsApp (a large messaging app) creates an even bigger company in terms of influence on the market. Apple might be buying companies for their tech, but their acquisitions don't just automatically increase their influence or market share through c…

It's a smart business strategy to buy smaller companies with great potential, it probably has something to do with why Apple is the richest company on earth, but that strategy also snuffs out that potential company before it has a chance to reach the prodigious scale of a WhatsApp or a LinkedIn. Presumably, Apple knows how to pick winners, so it's likely that at least a small fraction of Apple's acquisitions would have gone on to become ubiquitous house-hold names had they not been sold. Alas, it was fated not to be, but who knows what could have been?

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#89

Post by ojbyrne »

zepto wrote: post #25
veenusav wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the example of Tesla 2013. Apple is not hiring to keep the startup or the innovation. But for the up or even worst:for the talent. Its like selling your house to the scrap guy

Yeah - I mean I guess you can make it sound bad. But a ‘pivot’ is essentially the same thing - in terms of what gets scrapped. I see an acquihire as the market actually validating your company value even if you haven’t pivoted into a hockey stick product.

Sometimes aquihires are just execs at big companies helping their VC or angel friends save face and keep the deal pipeline open.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#90

Post by jfoster »

qbasic_forever wrote: post #9

So ~15 companies a year? That doesn't sound outrageous for a company with billions and billions of dollars in the bank, and billions more coming in every quarter. edit: If anything there's probably immense pressure on Cook to buy buy buy more stuff. I don't think anyone inside Apple wants to have a repeat of stuff like old Apple maps or other products that just languished and died internally while external companies…

At some point, does it become silly for the biggest companies to attempt their own solutions instead of just buying the one with the most traction or best implementation?

One example might be how Amazon never got into self-driving cars themselves, but then last year bought Zoox.

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