&gt; <i>&quot; I don&#x27;t care how big of a genius you are you&#x27;re not worth that as a developer of an email client, and honestly to write an Email client is not genius level shit. The UI was dope&quot;</i><p>But that&#x27;s the key isn&#x27;t it? I think you&#x27;re looking at this from too narrow a point of view.<p>Yeah, email clients aren&#x27;t worth much money, so its development isn&#x27;t worth much either (when&#x27;s the last time anyone you know paid for an email client?).<p>The point isn&#x27;t to acquire a &quot;developer of email clients&quot; it&#x27;s to acquire a &quot;developer of top-of-class mobile apps&quot;, which is considerably valuable. Think of the average quality of a mobile app you use on your phone, the bar is pretty low. Producing truly amazing mobile apps (like you said, the UI was dope) is hard, and requires the flawless, cohesive operation of a lot of facets from engineering to UX design.<p>Truly excellent mobile teams are very rare, and worth a lot of money. To the tune of $7.6MM over 2 years? Beats me, but it doesn&#x27;t seem completely out of the question.<p>Talented developers are worth a lot of money - teams of talented developers, designers, and product people who have a track record of producing stellar work together are worth a multiple of their individual values.<p>&gt; <i>&quot; and honestly to write an Email client is not genius level shit.&quot;</i><p>It&#x27;s not genius level shit, but it&#x27;s a <i>surprisingly rare skill</i>, and by that I mean writing very, very good frontends. Most people here can write a functional email client if they had to, but how many of them can write a <i>really fucking good</i> one, so good and so easy to use that people - and not just the technorati - sing its praises from the rooftops and get their friends and family to download it?<p>The Mailbox team was operating at a level well above nearly all mobile app teams, and the quality of their work was easily an order of magnitude better than the industry norm of its time. This may not justify their acquisition price, but I think you&#x27;re selling them short a bit. They&#x27;re a team of people known for exceptional quality work, and command a high price for it.