Ep. 499: M&A as A Risk Mitigation Tool

A CrowdStrike update that was pushed this past week took down Microsoft, which had a cascading effect across the real economy. MSFT could use M&A to mitigate that risk going forward. Microsoft could acquire 100% of the equity or at least a meaningful equity stake in any technology company that strategically impacts Azure, Windows, and Microsoft in general in order to enforce a rigorous process around third-party software updates. Such an equity stake likely would have prevented this week’s CrowdStrike disaster. In addition, owning a material equity stake in strategic technology partners would enable Microsoft to influence product strategy and direction. The risk of a material, negative event caused by a third-party application is too great for MSFT to not want to take risk mitigation measures. Equity stakes are a great risk mitigation tool. Watch the video version of this episode here: https://youtu.be/kyN4RMAWibs?feature=shared