Ask HN: Why do companies who’re replicable and non-defensible get acquired?

We hear about companies all the time that get acquired for millions of dollars by giants MS, Google, FB, Yahoo etc. If these companies can be replicated for much cheaper, why aren't they? They hold no patents usually, are still usually just selling to early adopters and not reached a critical mass, have not scaled significantly, a lot of their technology is dead simple to copy, they have softened the market by educating people to give a goliath a serious second-mover’s advantage, and most are actually even running at a loss or merely breaking even.<p>If you say this is just a way to buy out the founders as employees, my question is ‘Really? Were the founders ever offered a job? How do you know it’s the founder behind the skill-set you're looking for? What if it’s an employee’s work that impressed the acquirer? Only that company knows that.’<p>I mean trying to acquire a company that does what you do but does it much better makes sense - you’re squashing competition by moving in early, but trying to acquire a company that is more a little feature than a full blown product, a feature that can never generate more than 10% of what your revenue is even if <i>everything</i> works out in its favor, that is only adding a feature to your long list of offerings, and isn’t even a revenue generator.<p>Sorry don’t mean to ramble, but somebody make sense of this. I know these goliaths aren’t stupid (maybe lazy, paranoid?), I know I’m missing something, and I’m waiting to be convinced by you! :-)