Live data from Hacker News

Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

bloomberg.com

581–590 of 1001 posts

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#581

So smart for both Adobe and Figma. Figma posed a serious threat to Adobe and it makes sense for them to do it. The losers are all of us poor sods who were happy Figma customers. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

it's a bit counterintuitive that something can be good for a company (or companies) AND bad for the customers of said company... shouldn't something that is bad for a customer of a company be bad for the company too?

Depends on the customer. The equity has customers too.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#582
post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> discovered it had gone subscription-only as well, meaning my entire photo library would now be trapped on my old laptop unless I paid a monthly fee forever. I empathize, but isn't all this the reason they would fork out so much for figma? I mean, people hated them for going subscription with the tools that used to be desktop, but they absolutely adore figma that has never been anything but subscription. It's confus…

> but they absolutely adore figma that has never been anything but subscription. Doesn't Figma have a free tier? That changes everything.

I use figma for personal projects and I've never forked out a dime.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#583
Surprised to see all the "hate" for Adobe. They provide an awesome suite of products only $55 per month. I've had nothing but good experiences with them. Is it wrong to pay for software when you get a truckload of value out of it? No other creative software even comes close.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#584

So smart for both Adobe and Figma. Figma posed a serious threat to Adobe and it makes sense for them to do it. The losers are all of us poor sods who were happy Figma customers. Just goes to show that if you want an outsized exit multiple the best way is to put a gun to a $100B company's head.

Perfect summary. Nothing to add. I find it odd that sometimes, founders want only one thing, to be number 1. At first its a good thing, but if that doesn't work their goal is destroying their company. When you can sell your company for X billions instead of XX billions ... you succeeded in life. Show me one real thing that you can do with XX billions, that is not possible with X billions. Excluding a star destroyer ;…

Buying Figma, apparently

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#585

243 times their revenue? From what I can research: Figma took $332M in funding and has just $82M revenue for 2022. Adobe must be betting on Figma's 60% YOY growth and probably see them as existential threat.

It’s probably less the revenue they’d gain and more the revenue they’d lose to figma.

Doesn’t matter what figma makes if the customers they’re losing are worth 20B in the long run. This is certainly a defensive position.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#586
post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any other company to which my relationship as a customer has swung so completely as Adobe. In the 2000s, their tools were unsurpassed, and I was happy to pay the premium prices they asked (though I'd skip versions to save money). When Creative Suite was discontinued, that was a pretty abrupt turn, as I had no interest in a subscription for software I only used for personal projects. And yet, I stayed…

> their tools were unsurpassed Why the past tense? Which tools have been surpassed? Have Photoshop been surpassed? I am genuinely curious here. I take note of Capture One, but is it an "acceptable yet technically inferior alternative that I picked because I don't agree with Adobe business practices" (which I think is a valid reason) or a viable alternative even for someone who doesn't have a problem dealing with Adob…

I'm not a designer full time, but have dabbled over my career and in my youth used Photoshop and Premiere heavily. I'd say Pixelmator and Sketch were more approachable, discoverable and had better workflows. This made the combo of being easier to pick up than Adobe tools and more powerful for professionals. I was able to use Figma productively in my first day of using it. The added collaboration features with Figma's App preview mode and collaboration in the tool made me never look at anything else when I needed to design something.

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#589
post #169

And now all of the Figma users are saying "Oh [crap]... now I need to find a new tool to use." When is the last time Adobe acquired something and it improved? They destroyed Fireworks and Dreamweaver when they acquired Macromedia (which they only did because they wanted Flash). At this point I'm tempted to swear off Adobe products entirely -- except that the combo of Lightroom and Photoshop are the industry standard…

Premiere and After Effects are also industry standards for video, Illustrator is the industry standard for illustrators, and I'm sure there's more I don't know about. As far as producing industry-standard products in the creative sphere, who is better than Adobe?

Re: Adobe to acquire Figma for $20B

#590
post #379

This is probably the only tech acquisition that's ever made me sad. I just hate Adobe so much. The nightmare of their installer, the weird store with horrible designs popping up when you activate normal ui stuff, the difficulty in canceling a subscription, and the stasis in their product and ui. Oh and the sloppiness of Lightroom on mac with it's weird ui and that it didn't even import and manage photos well. I've be…

This genuinely hurts. Not only is Figma an excellent product, it demonstrates what can be achieved on the web as a platform.
Post reply on HN