Just one day after I suggested that Google’s acquisition strategy is to cherry-pick small pre-significant-funding startups to buy innovation and engineering talent, the company announces that it plans to sell approximately $4.2B in shares of its stock. And as Paul Kedrosky concluded, “It seems fairly certain, therefore, that Google has some company-buying in mind.” Large company-buying if that’s the case. It appears that Google’s past purchases are perhaps not necessarily indicative of its future ones. So now both low-flying seed-stage companies and larger-cap techs are potential acquisition targets. Internet startups seeking liquidity have even more reason to become hopeful.
The alternative explanation, however, is that Google views its stock as overpriced and is “selling high” while it can. This is at least the second event this month of “selling search” – the other was Jupitermedia Corporation selling Searchenginewatch.com and the SearchEngine Strategies show.
UPDATE: Apropos, you can check out Rags’ blog for a job posting from Google “looking for people of all levels of experience to join its M&A team.”