Meta actually pioneered the Buy The Competition strategy in a brand new way.

1. Larger acquisitions. IG was $1B for a 13 employee company. WA was $22B. We were all talking about how big those numbers were at the time, but looking back they seem like mid-sized acquisitions. Before, most companies would have looked at these numbers and tried to build it themselves, or underbid, or just not pull the trigger. Blockbuster and Netflix. Yahoo and Google.

2. He meet the user where they were. He made no meaningful and instant change to the apps. There was no rebranding. They still have their own login screens and apps. Many casual users might not notice their major platforms are owned by the same company. Compare this to more old-school tech companies like Oracle buying Sun, or a national cellphone provider buying a regional one, or whatever happens with AOL-Time-Warner-Discovery.