Rather than the big companies taking the risk of funding many "pads" most of which will fail they let other people put their money at risk and only end up buying the proven winners. How much money would they have had to throw at failed "pads" before getting Aardvark? If the answer is more than $50 million then they got a good deal.
You wrote a good post. It reminded me of 'The Origins of Wealth' by Beinhocker. He spends a lot of time exploring why most companies spend most of their time playing it safe and why so little is spent on exploring new markets/business models.
He also makes the point that most companies don't survive very long. I don't think tech is especially unique in this regard.
People probably don't leave the hedge funds because they are in a great situation. Hedge funds managers get to play the heads I win tails I get a management fee game. People, once they have wealth, can be surprisingly risk averse and don't want to risk substantial portions of their own wealth as capital in a new venture.
