“I tend to have a high bar for M&A…”

I tend to have a high bar for M&A considerations. All the research I have seen is that most deals fail to create the value expected by the acquirer. My instinct is that many deals are done because the CEO is frustrated that the business is not where they want it to be, they would rather do something than nothing, and M&A seems like the biggest lever they have. This is a bad reason to do a deal. So for these two ideas specifically, I would ask you to find a compelling elucidation of what you are trying to accomplish. 1) neutralize a potential competitor? Bad reason in my book since someone else will spring up immediately in their place. There will always be consumers who are instinctively negative about the industry leaders and want to work with the upstarts. We will always have upstarts nipping at our heels. We have to win against competitors by having better products. 2) acquire talent? Seems expensive for this. 3) integrate their products with ours in order to improve our service? This can be a very compelling reason, if you have a clear vision for how the implementation would be great for users and that we cannot do the product improvements ourselves in a reasonable timeframe. 4) other? Happy to discuss further.