The paradox of technological acquisitions is that while acquiring a firm for its knowledge or technological capabilities should create value, the evidence is at best mixed. Using a sample with 3,333 U.S. acquisitions, announced between January 1st, 2000 and December 31st, 2010, and a market-based event study, this paper contributes to the paradox in two ways. First, we build upon prior literature which suggests that the market will respond to the signals it receives about the deal. Unlike prior literature, which labels acquisitions in high-tech industries as, per definition, technologically orientated, we identify technological acquisitions using the officially announced acquisition motive. We build a sample of high-tech acquisitions, and consider the press-release as the relevant signal, as opposed to a sample of all acquisitions in the high-tech industry, where the industry flag is the signal. Secondly, and because we build upon the literature which suggests that most acquisitions are driven by multiple motives, we allow for acquiring firms to create mixed signals. We hypothesize: (1) that any secondary acquisition motives, announced in conjunction with a technological acquisition, will be interpreted as a distraction by the market, and thus suggest that the number of secondary motives will negatively moderate the performance of a technological acquisitions; and (2) that the type of secondary motive will signal the firms commitment to the deal, or its nativity. Managers which announce strategically consistent secondary motives, we suggest, will outperform those that announce strategically inconsistent motives. We lay bare the market signaling conditions under which the acquiring firm can create value with a technological acquisition and, in the doing so, contribute to the literature on acquisition motives, and to the literature on the performance of high tech acquisitions.