Comment by HWR_14

Goodwill isn't consumer goodwill. It's acquisition goodwill. So if Google buys a company for $1 billion, that might be a great business decision. But the cashflow and projections may only justify an accounting value of 500MM. That doesn't mean it's not a great decision because of a lot of valid reasons. That extra 500MM has to be added to Google's books somehow (they spent $1 billion, and books have to balance), so they have an asset of 500MM of "goodwill" and a corporate asset of 500MM.