This is not new in any way. Famously, Cisco has done this for decades, having been on a nonstop mad acquisition spree since the nineties, and more than once even acquiring companies that started as Cisco spin-out.
Also many of Google’s flagship products come from acquisitions. Eg Android, Docs, YouTube, their entire ad network, Firebase, DeepMind, lots more.
This isn’t easy! Equally famously, Microsoft routinely botches acquisitions, eg Skype, Nokia etc. Seems to me the only MS acquisitions that don’t fail are the ones they mostly leave alone (eg LinkedIn, GitHub).
Almost the entire biotech industry has been this way for decades once the small molecule patent cliff hit pharma and the R&D costs for therapies skyrocketed. If you look at biotech IPOs, the majority of the startups IPO pre-revenue, long before they’re even legally allowed to sell anything.
Which is totally fine: anyone who is a biotech investor knows this and everyone makes tons of money in this arrangement. Investors (both public and private) take on the science risk and some of the regulatory risk, and the pharmaceutical companies provide a guaranteed (big $$$) exit and take over scaling manufacturing to bring a drug to market. Most people with retirement accounts and pensions and index funds rarely touch this stuff except as a diversification strategy that pools the risky stuff to get the upside on the whole industry.
It's the same in medical devices. Most startups take it from idea through R&D then go public or are acquired right as they go through FDA approval or submit for it.
Cadence is one of the big companies in EDA (Electronic Design Automation - semiconductor chip design software)
I met someone that left to go to a startup and was bought by Cadence. He did this 5 times and about 2-3 years later Cadence would buy the startup he was at. He just couldn't get away.
Also many of Google’s flagship products come from acquisitions. Eg Android, Docs, YouTube, their entire ad network, Firebase, DeepMind, lots more.
This isn’t easy! Equally famously, Microsoft routinely botches acquisitions, eg Skype, Nokia etc. Seems to me the only MS acquisitions that don’t fail are the ones they mostly leave alone (eg LinkedIn, GitHub).