95% could be accurate.  I&#x27;d consider every &quot;acqi-hire&quot; an overt failure.  Your business failed, but you personally got to fail upwards.  acqui-hires are generally VC-engineere soft landings (everybody has friends they can ask for $50 million in a pinch, right?).<p>Just because money changes hands in the end doesn&#x27;t make it a success.  You fail upwards until you become a creature of pure thought leadership (i.e. a VC whose only job is to &#x27;have an opinion&#x27; on stuff and can never be proven wrong because, hey, it&#x27;s all an opinion or luck or the market or some <i>unforeseeable</i> outside force you failed to consider when failures continually happen).