Just five weeks after acquiring mobile messaging app WhatsApp (for a whopping $19 billion), Facebook announced Tuesday it plans to buy Oculus, the virtual reality headset startup that’s been the talk of the town—the gaming town, that is—even though it has yet to send a single product to market. The $2 billion buyout includes 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock and $400 million in cash.
Techonomy CEO and Bloomberg contributing editor David Kirkpatrick appeared on Bloomberg Surveillance Wednesday to talk about Facebook’s objectives in acquiring Oculus, both now and in the future. “They can win with this purchase,” Kirkpatrick said, adding that Oculus can help Facebook achieve its short-term goal of building a stronger gaming platform. “The long-term vision is to basically create a new platform that could in effect even compete with Facebook as we know it today as a platform for interaction.”
While Zuckerberg’s growing arsenal of acquisitions continues to draw criticism, Kirkpatrick believes the young CEO will be able to manage them—and with tact. “Look at the results. He has a company with 1.2 billion users in 10 years,” Kirkpatrick said. “How much can you really cavil about that?”