Buying digital innovation: silver bullet or albatross?

Walmart’s recent acquisition of Jet.com is certain to be an historical business school case study either on buying innovation, or on poor diligence and overconfidence about integration.  
That said, it’s far from unique in today’s marketplace. We’ve seen many traditional and not-so-traditional companies pay heavily for an upstart that’s perceived as innovative. For example, Microsoft greatly beefed up its social presence with its acquisition of LinkedIn. A