Over 2024-2025, Big Tech deployed $40+ billion through “license & acqui-hire” structures that achieve M&A outcomes while bypassing regulatory scrutiny.
Founders to Google; company becomes “licensing shell”
Inflection (Pi)
Microsoft
$650M
Suleyman becomes CEO of Microsoft AI; Pi absorbed into Copilot
Scale AI
Meta
$14.3B stake
Strategic investment
Why This Structure Works
These structures achieve M&A outcomes (talent, IP, neutralizing competitors) while:
Bypassing HSR filing requirements
Avoiding FTC scrutiny
Keeping the target “technically independent”
The DOJ is now investigating the Google-Character.AI deal as a potential de facto acquisition.
Impact on Ecosystem
The playbook creates “zombie startups”—companies hollowed of talent and innovation capacity but technically still operating.
Character.AI continues with new leadership but lost its founding team (Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas—both original co-authors of the transformer architecture) and unique strategic advantage.
The Pattern
Consumer AI companions are proving difficult to build as independent businesses. The path to sustainability runs through Big Tech integration—either as acqui-hire target or as platform feature.
If you are building in this space, your durable strategy cannot rely on modelquality alone.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
