I think sometimes that, if I had made slightly different life choices, I might have become a guy who pretends to buy public companies as a hobby. There are guys like that! Elon Musk is the most famous — “It is possible that nobody in human history has ever spent more money on a hobby than Elon Musk has spent on his hobby of pretending to buy public companies,” I once wrote — but there are others, and I understand the appeal. Mergers and acquisitions are exciting; inserting yourself into the dram...