I don't work for ATI (anymore) but I still think AMD got the deal of the year for ATI. That needs to be taken in perspective of course. Based on the technology and promise the company had, I feel its stock was undervalued. NVIDIA's stock on the other hand was way overvalued. Even buying NVIDIA at the same price as ATI would have been a foolish mistake. NV is still far behind the curve where it counts for AMD - integrated and mobile graphics. They do much better than ATI with marketing and that helps pull the wool over many people's eyes, but most of their stuff is shite. I suppose AMD could have pieced-off NV and made quite a bit back...

ATI has plenty of issues on the desktop graphics side too, so don't get me wrong. NVIDIA was offered to ATI at what would now be considered a "gift" back in the Riva days. It wouldn't have been that big a deal to acquire them, but I'm not certain it would have been a good move as it would have changed the landscape in some pretty unpredictable ways. I don't know what the future will hold for AMD, but at this time I still think ATI got the short end of the stick (I don't feel they needed the buy-out and I haven't seen it grow their business in a big way yet).

Spending $2B on Skype was ludicrous, even if it has some decent buzz. Unfortunately that buzz has stolen some thunder from more meaningful (for non computer-based talking) VOIP providers.

Doubleclick still gets a lot of traffic and use by a lot of popular sites. If you have an otherwise "unlimited" pool of cash lying around I supposed "why not" spend $3B.

None of this is as mind-boggling as the amount of money being flushed down the toilet by the US government on military and defence spending year after year.