> In inclined to believe that neither would have become trillion dollar companies if they had been acquired by Yahoo.

Having lived through several acquisitions - both as a founder exiting and as an employee being acquired/acquiring...

Very rarely does the acquirer have the vision to see when the acquired company has a better long term trajectory. The CEO who does the deal might, but the senior management team and line managers usually just intentionally and unintentionally rob the acquired company of resources (cash, people, marketing, facilities) and then the exodus of smart people begins. It takes a very special team to make acquisitions actually add up to 1+1=4 most are lucky to get 1+1=0.5.