Instragram/TikTok/Snap aren't exactly novel ideas, the only valuable thing about them are the brands (also intellectual property but not what we are talking about).
I only know VMWare from its days as virtualization software. I would put money on them having had a bunch of patents on the specific techniques they used.
Software patents sometimes work out, sometimes not. If I were king of the world I wouldn't get rid of them but narrow the scope down to protecting specific implementations, none of this "Buying stuff of the internet" pantenting that invested the 00s.
