&gt; Big companies buy &#x27;disrupters&#x27; when they fear their market share is at risk.<p>Yep. I can see why they don&#x27;t wait for them to crumble though. What if they don&#x27;t? That&#x27;s a big risk to take.<p>When a potentially disruptive product gets bought, it virtually always means death of the product. You get fed a line about how it&#x27;s going to keep going, and then a few months down the line, it has all been integrated into some existing big company product.<p>What&#x27;s sad to think about is that sure, a lot of these companies would have failed, but how many would have succeeded? We&#x27;ll never know. I don&#x27;t blame founders: it&#x27;s pretty hard to say no to a mountain of cash when your future is so uncertain. But deep down, I still wish more would take the gamble.