Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

figma.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 1001 posts

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#491

Post by garbageman »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #456
eigenvalue wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, from Adobe’s 8K filed today with the SEC: “On December 17, 2023, the Company and Figma mutually agreed to terminate the Merger Agreement and entered into a mutual termination agreement effective as of such date (the “Termination Agreement”). The mutual termination of the Merger Agreement was approved by the Company’s and Figma’s respective Boards of Directors. In accordance with the terms of the Termination Agr…

Incredible that they have $1b sitting around in cash. Wouldn't you at least put it into a bond or treasury?

Typically they keep enough for business activities as cash and the rest go into cash equivalent / money market type things that earn some interest.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#492

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

fairity wrote: post #392

> Fifteen months into the regulatory review process, Figma and Adobe no longer see a path toward regulatory approval How in the world did it take fifteen months for regulators to reject this? That’s an absurdly long time to be operating a business in limbo, and I have to assume it’s the regulators dragging their feet since the companies have every incentive to move quickly. I don’t have an opinion on whether or not t…

> That’s an absurdly long time to be operating a business in limbo, and I have to assume it’s the regulators dragging their feet since the companies have every incentive to move quickly.

Your understanding here is fundamentally wrong. Regulators in the US said very early on they were against this merger and were going to fight it. So most of what goes on in the meantime is Adobe and Figma (a) seeing if they can give something up to appease regulators (e.g. it's common for regulators to only sign off on a deal if one of the companies sells off some assets) or (b) decide if they're going to fight the regulators in court.

Your idea of the regulators just "dragging their feet" is incorrect

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#493

Post by [deleted] »

FredPret wrote: post #295

Photographers: is Adobe Photoshop still the king of photo editing? I strongly dislike Adobe’s “subscription only” business model, but it seems the market is telling them that subscriptions are a-OK: Adobe’s profits are very steady and are up 70+% in five years. [ https://valustox.com/ADBE ]

[deleted]

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#494

Post by BobaFloutist »

fairity wrote: post #392

> Fifteen months into the regulatory review process, Figma and Adobe no longer see a path toward regulatory approval How in the world did it take fifteen months for regulators to reject this? That’s an absurdly long time to be operating a business in limbo, and I have to assume it’s the regulators dragging their feet since the companies have every incentive to move quickly. I don’t have an opinion on whether or not t…

you can expect a serious chilling effect on M&A.

Promise?

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#495

Post by Ericson2314 »

Renewed anti-trust is an interesting experiment. I don't what the consequences will be, but I am excited to find out!

If a nothing else, I want people to think "we should try more policy experiments to become wiser" rather than "oh no, effect uncertain, better stick with status quo".

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#496

Post by ethbr1 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #487
Bjorkbat wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the regulators made their point pretty clear early on when the DOJ opened a lawsuit against Adobe. The people most responsible for keeping this in limbo were Adobe’s lawyers.

The Broadcom & VMware merger took similarly long and was approved. The duration is completely unacceptable and poison to business. I'm general against mergers and think it's better for consumers and the market if competitors fight to the (metaphorical) death instead, but if we do something, let's do it smoothly and right. That said, for mergers like that a ton of countries are involved which makes things even more co…

This would have gone quickly, to no, if Figma and Adobe had taken the first answer they got from DoJ at face value.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#497

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

sowbug wrote: post #196
codeptualize wrote: post #126

That is wild. It's a good thing as it means Adobe won't ruin Figma like they did with so many great software products before, but just imagine founders, investors and employees, thinking they had a really good exit.. That must hurt, I hope they can stay motivated. If Adobe can't buy them, what other exit options do they have? Go public?

What's wrong with selling goods and services for more than they cost?

I think this is my favorite comment of the year. We've all become so inured to the idea, especially in startup land, that the purpose of building a business is just the exit (and hopefully we can get out soon enough with someone else "holding the bag").

As you point out, if Figma can build a growing, profitable business, there is no reason they can't IPO at some point. But still, this shows how even the purpose of an IPO these days is completely opposite from the original intention. I.e. the original intention was to get access to public market funds to grow a business. Now it's usually just a method of "exit" to let retail investors take the lion's share of the risk - one only need to look at 95%+ of the past few years' SPAC deals to see how much of a "pump and dump" the market has become.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#498

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ajmurmann wrote: post #487
Bjorkbat wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the regulators made their point pretty clear early on when the DOJ opened a lawsuit against Adobe. The people most responsible for keeping this in limbo were Adobe’s lawyers.

The Broadcom & VMware merger took similarly long and was approved. The duration is completely unacceptable and poison to business. I'm general against mergers and think it's better for consumers and the market if competitors fight to the (metaphorical) death instead, but if we do something, let's do it smoothly and right. That said, for mergers like that a ton of countries are involved which makes things even more co…

> Broadcom & VMware merger took similarly long and was approved. The duration is completely unacceptable and poison to business

The number of such mergers, globally every year, is countable on two hands. They involve the wealth of nations (this one’s similar to Malta’s GDP [1][2]).

It would be unreasonable to permanently staff the regulatory force that would be required to quickly review such deals in any industry.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

[2] https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2022/Adobe-to-Acqui...

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#499

Post by spaceman_2020 »

costcofries wrote: post #273
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imo, Adobe is falling behind. Photoshop's generative AI is substantially worse than what I can get from models on Tensorart/CivitAI + an upscaler. It's way easier to produce something that can go live right now without much editing in CivitAI -> Upscale in Magnific -> Add to Canva.

Worse or not, a meaningful majority of users will never even understand the alternate workflow you just described.

Then they will be outproduced. I, a graphic design noob, managed to create a bunch of social media posts for an upcoming project that included a completely custom 3D character in precisely the poses I wanted, all within an hour. Without gen AI, I would have likely spent hours digging through stock photos, modifying lighting and colors, and still not achieved what I wanted to.

Not using the latest and greatest tools in your profession isn't really a flex.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#500

Post by spaceman_2020 »

facialwipe wrote: post #262
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imo, Adobe is falling behind. Photoshop's generative AI is substantially worse than what I can get from models on Tensorart/CivitAI + an upscaler. It's way easier to produce something that can go live right now without much editing in CivitAI -> Upscale in Magnific -> Add to Canva.

I think what you mean to say is Stable Diffusion. CivitAI is primarily a host for SD models to download and run locally.

You can run many of the models directly through CivitAI. You get lower quality images, but you can upscale them through an upscaler.

Just go to any model and click "Create". You can even use examples from the model to prefill the prompt.

For example, you can scroll down and click "Start Creating" on this page: https://civitai.com/images/3908138

Post reply on HN