Preparing a company for acquisition can lead founders to make short-term decisions that please the acquirer but undermine the brand's core agility, setting it up for failure post-sale. The focus shifts from longevity to a transaction.

High-stakes bidding for legacy media assets like Warner Bros. is driven by status-seeking among the ultra-wealthy, not a sound bet on the future of media. They are acquiring prestigious "shiny objects" from the past, while the actual attention economy has shifted to platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

In a competitive M&A process where the target is reluctant, a marginal price increase may not work. A winning strategy can be to 'overpay' significantly. This makes the offer financially indefensible for the board to reject and immediately ends the bidding process, guaranteeing the acquisition.

Amazon's attempt to 'Amazonify' Whole Foods by adding processed foods like Doritos and Pepsi highlights the brand clash that causes two-thirds of corporate acquisitions to fail. The strategy, which includes hiding junk food in back rooms, is a sign of impatience and a fundamental misunderstanding of the acquired brand's value.

The most lucrative exit for a startup is often not an IPO, but an M&A deal within an oligopolistic industry. When 3-4 major players exist, they can be forced into an irrational bidding war driven by the fear of a competitor acquiring the asset, leading to outcomes that are even better than going public.

Investors and acquirers pay premiums for predictable revenue, which comes from retaining and upselling existing customers. This "expansion revenue" is a far greater value multiplier than simply acquiring new customers, a metric most founders wrongly prioritize.

Coca-Cola failed with ZICO not by changing its core quality, but by stripping away its ability to adapt. Large corporate systems, built for consistency at scale, enforce rigid processes that stifle the very nimbleness that made a challenger brand successful.

For legacy companies in declining industries, a massive, 'bet the ranch' acquisition is not an offensive growth strategy but a defensive, existential one. The primary motivation is to gain scale and avoid becoming the smallest, most vulnerable player in a consolidating market, even if it requires stretching financially.

Recent acquisitions of slow-growth public SaaS companies are not just value grabs but turnaround plays. Acquirers believe these companies' distribution can be revitalized by injecting AI-native products, creating a path back to high growth and higher multiples.