The playbook crystallized with Mellanox: ~$6.9B for best-in-class adjacent tech (April 2020), immediate integration — 14% of revenue in Q1 — yet no separate networking line for four years. Full-year networking eventually reached $31B, 10x the acquisition-era level. The gap between operational absorption and public narration is the tell. Three modalities followed: full acquisition, licensing-plus-team, equity-plus-commitments — each sized to how much of the target the platform needs to own. Integrations arrive years before announcements; the announcements are the lagging indicator.