For a company that is in decline a lot of cash in the bank is pointless. Yahoo was in decline. So you can either have nice balance sheets while others chip away at your core business or you can spend your money either rebuilding your core or extending it.

I wouldn't put it like that; they held off on issuing dividends, and a lot of the money they're spending now is from selling half their stake in Alibaba.

Also, potentially being on TechCrunch or <insert news source> everyday may be more effective marketing, recruiting, culture building than money in the bank.