What happened to Transmeta, the last big dotcom IPO

TL;DR:

    What happened to Transmeta was that in 2005, Transmeta shifted to licensing intellectual property rather than selling CPUs.

…they became a patent troll

Nonsense. They are licensing IP they created.

Thats different qualitatively and quantitatively than buying patent rights for cheap (since the even the original patent holders didn't think it was worth much) and suing random people who happen to use a product that may infringe on the patent.

If their patent portfolio wasn't being used for patent trolling, why is it currently owned by Intellectual Ventures, once called "the ultimate patent troll" by journalists. (https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/4/5375304/intellectual-ventu...)