I am not sure if my title is explaining what I am trying to say. Lets take an example.
Netscape was the King of Web. (in the late 1990s)
Yahoo! was Nothing.
Google was no-where.
Netscape as web giant signed the web search deal with Yahoo! instead of buying the search technology from Yahoo! which introduced Yahoo! to Netscape users and turned users away from Netscape to Yahoo! (Yahoo! became the web and web search giant)
Yahoo! as web and web search giant signed the similar web search deal with Google instead of buying the technology or at least signing the long term exclusive web search technology deal. (Yahoo! repeated the Netscape mistake as it introduced Google to its users and the rest is history.)
There are many examples like that especially in the Corporate and Political world.