Google-Motorola — the strategy behind it | Stratrix

Company profile

Headquarters: Chicago, United States
Ownership: Acquired by Google in 2012 and sold to Lenovo in 2014.

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The analyses

The Counterfactual · Decision Forks

Google Didn't Lose $9.6 Billion on Motorola. It Bought an Insurance Policy and Sold the Box It Came In.

The story is that Google paid $12.5B for Motorola and dumped it on Lenovo for $2.91B, eating a ~$9.6B loss. That math forgets the $2.35B set-top sale, Motorola's cash, and the one asset Google never sold: roughly 17,000 patents.