I take your point, but I want to add a couple more things.<p>Buying a company costs a <i>lot</i> more than the purchase price. Due diligence, regulatory compliance, legal expenses, HR expenses, lost productivity due to changes, employee turnover, and other factors put a huge premium on top of that price.<p>Plus, a company that you buy has its own cash-flows, assets, and liabilities, and those might be costly, too. It&#x27;s not always a good idea to buy a ship that&#x27;s slowly sinking.<p>I think Microsoft has done incredibly well without Yahoo, and it&#x27;s also using Bing in interesting ways that don&#x27;t require direct competition with Google (powering Cortana, for example).