15 shocking tech mergers that could have happened but never did

folarin okunola

October 27, 2015 12:57 PM

One thing that most people don’t realize is that big Internet giants like Facebook and Google were also once smaller companies that were almost bought over or offered to be sold to bigger companies at some point

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Mergers and acquisitions are not a new thing in the business aspects of technology. Companies buy other companies all the time. Sometimes, to great gain and other times, the result is appalling loss.

One thing that most people don’t realize is that big Internet giants like Facebook and Google were also once smaller companies that were almost bought over or offered to be sold to bigger companies at the time.

Here are 15 surprising mergers/acquisitions in tech that could have happened but never did.

In 2008,
In 2010, Google tried to buy
Yahoo tried to buy Facebook for $1 billion in 2006. Facebook declined and is valued at around $245 billion today.

Facebook approached
In 2008, Google tried to acquire
In 2003, Google tried to acquire

Google tried to acquire
Facebook tried to acquire

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Google made an offer to buy
In 2005, Facebook offered itself up for sale to
Google also offered itself up for sale to

Twitter tried to acquire
In 2002, Microsoft, attempted to acquire

In 2009, Google offered to acquire

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