Marc Andreessen认为的科技企业的并购规则
1/Second thing often misunderstood about tech valuations: How M&A acquirers decide how much $ to pay for companies they buy.
2/The key: Value of a tech company to public or private markets may be completely unrelated to value of same co to a corporate acquirer.
3/Value of company X to acquirer Y often = Potential impact to acquirer Y's business -- which has a lot more to do with Y than X.
4/For example, in product businesses, you'll often hear term "attach rate" -- acquirer Y can attach company X's product to Y's sales engine.
5/Ex: I sell $20B of servers/year; I buy storage company X doing $100M revenue/year; & I can attach X's product to 20% of my server sales.
6/Ex cont'd: I can generate new $20B*20% = $4B/year of storage sales attached to my server business. X's standalone revenue is irrelevant.
7/Ex cont'd: So I can pay up for storage company X based on its projected impact on MY business, way beyond X's independent valuation.
8/Of course, for the deal to be good, I have to deliver that attach rate. But when it works, and it often does, it's magical & worth doing.
9/This is literal meaning of attach rate, but there are others -- such as, maybe I know how to better monetize something I buy than they do.
10/Large $ acquisitions of small co's that seem irrational to outsiders almost always have a rigorous plan like this within the acquirer.
11/It's just nearly impossible to see from the outside, which is why many outsiders get so confused and upset at the time of acquisition.
12/But on the other hand, we do not consider it safe for a tech startup to have a plan that DEPENDS on a large acquirer applying this logic.
13/We only invest in startups that have a plan to be large independent dominant companies on their own, with great businesses in long term.
14/And the act of building for long-term independence makes you more attractive to potential acquirers, not less. So you can win both ways.
2/The key: Value of a tech company to public or private markets may be completely unrelated to value of same co to a corporate acquirer.
3/Value of company X to acquirer Y often = Potential impact to acquirer Y's business -- which has a lot more to do with Y than X.
4/For example, in product businesses, you'll often hear term "attach rate" -- acquirer Y can attach company X's product to Y's sales engine.
5/Ex: I sell $20B of servers/year; I buy storage company X doing $100M revenue/year; & I can attach X's product to 20% of my server sales.
6/Ex cont'd: I can generate new $20B*20% = $4B/year of storage sales attached to my server business. X's standalone revenue is irrelevant.
7/Ex cont'd: So I can pay up for storage company X based on its projected impact on MY business, way beyond X's independent valuation.
8/Of course, for the deal to be good, I have to deliver that attach rate. But when it works, and it often does, it's magical & worth doing.
9/This is literal meaning of attach rate, but there are others -- such as, maybe I know how to better monetize something I buy than they do.
10/Large $ acquisitions of small co's that seem irrational to outsiders almost always have a rigorous plan like this within the acquirer.
11/It's just nearly impossible to see from the outside, which is why many outsiders get so confused and upset at the time of acquisition.
12/But on the other hand, we do not consider it safe for a tech startup to have a plan that DEPENDS on a large acquirer applying this logic.
13/We only invest in startups that have a plan to be large independent dominant companies on their own, with great businesses in long term.
14/And the act of building for long-term independence makes you more attractive to potential acquirers, not less. So you can win both ways.
