Yeah, except one counterfactual scenario: Andy Rubin actually tried to sell Android to Samsung. Let's assume the deal was made; do you really think Android would grow into this dominant position at Samsung's hands? I know Samsung very well and I am 99.9% sure that it will be a miserable failure.

All those acquired products were nearly non-existent compared to post-Google era. The founders may deserve some credits, but it's mostly Google's job that bring them into the real products. Let us not be that idea guy; what really matters to success is execution.

EDIT: typo

You're assuming that those products weren't capable of reaching scale without Google's intervention. By that logic, Bill Gates should have sold Microsoft to IBM, because that is the only way Windows would have ever reached scale.

I'd argue that indeed, many of these acquired companies could not reach scale w/o Google. Consider Youtube which was burning millions on hosting and always on the verge of bankruptcy if they couldnt raise more funding.

Add in a company that can fund operations, provide user flow, provide a pool of advertisers, real compensation to engineers, and you have a real success.

I give Google a lot of kudos on this.

Do we really want another SUN Microsystems happenning?

> By that logic, Bill Gates should have sold Microsoft to IBM

False analogy, because:

- Software provides the most utility, not the hardware, which is why IBM needed Microsoft more than vice versa, and why Android wouldn't have been nearly as much of a success if they'd been absorbed into a single phone hardware company.

- Google in 2005-2010 was a very different company to IBM in 1980; i.e., much more innovative, fast-moving and highly motivated to grow fast to rival the iPhone.

Google was willing to pay the most. This means it was more confident than anyone else of being able to scale the products.

> do you really think Android would grow into this dominant position at Samsung's hands? I know Samsung very well and I am 99.9% sure that it will be a miserable failure.

And maybe that would have been for the best. If we look, within a year of the HTC Dream (G1, First commercial Android phone) Nokia released the N900, an amazing device running real Linux.

We could have had Maemo instead of Android.

off topic question: what’s the idea behind “EDIT: typo”? HN doesn't indicate in any way that your post has been edited and certainly you’re not changing the meaning in a tangible way warranting the etiquette. Nobody is going to fault you for fixing a typo.

IIRC if you edit after a certain period of time, HN marks your post with an asterisk to indicate that it's been edited.

Buying a company and making it successful is a huge tasks that is often bungled by many companies. Look at the graveyard of M&A by Yahoo. Now contrast that to Google's spectacular M&A record -- YouTube, Google Sheets, Google Analytics, etc.