I was just reading about the Weta digital acquisition for something like $1.6B. A year later they decided to give up on most of that and laid off most of the technical talent. After which Peter Jackson hired them back for his new digital effects company. So he basically got a billion dollars to take a break for a year.
On the bright side for Unity almost all of that acquisition was financed using convertible notes from their VC investors which are almost worthless (I think > $300 share price) at 0%(!) interest. So their balance sheet isn’t that bad as a cursory look at it might imply.
