system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: The benefit of spending millions/billions on acquiring another company, rather than starting one themselves.

I mean like Amazon buying Audible in 2008 for $300 million or Walmart buying Jet.com for over $3 billion.

Why couldn't Amazon just start their own service rather than spending money on someone elses? Walmart has $3 billion to spend, why not invest that in themselves and make their own version of Jet.com?
gpt
You get their workers, machines, software, facilities, and customers in one transaction.  Sure, you could get those things separately in a thousand transactions, but that does it cost to execute those 1000 transactions?  When it's cheaper, you start a new business.  Plus, when you buy someone, there is not an additional competitor diluting the market niche.