The last three you mentioned are all tiny companies acquired for huge amounts of money.
YouTube had something like 60 people at acquisition -- definitely under 100. Instgram had under 20 I believe. Not sure about Paypal but I'm sure it was dwarfed by Ebay.
There is something to that. I think a smaller number of people can be integrated into a larger one, but when two massive companies like Microsoft and Nokia come together, there is bound to be friction.
Not sure what happened with Google and Motorola, but the companies were I think wisely kept separate, whereas it sounds like Nadella wants more "integration synergies".
These Uber mergers never seem to create any lasting value
I think you're overstating things tremendously here. ThinkPad is alive, and from the reviews I've seen, doing well. http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/28/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon.... Many buyouts end with entire products being canned.
I still have an IBM ThinkPad. They were good quality back then, but I really think the standard-bearer today is MacBook.
New thinkpads are just like every other manufacturer's laptops, even the X line.
Yes, many. Think of the Lenovo-IBM deal -- massive success. The Facebook-Whatsapp deal is 2.5x bigger than this acquisition, we'll see how that works out (financially). Google-Youtube is a big one that can be considered as a big success as well. Ebay-Paypal. FB-Instagram.