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Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

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Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

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post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is anecdotes like this that make me think that the public shareholder model is fundamentally flawed and a large part of why many American companies are struggling to truly build long term value, and many once great companies have been destroyed by beancounters to bleating calls of shareholder value.

I don't know how much of this is actually a problem with the shareholder model (though I hate it). From what I understand, the whole "legal obligation to shareholders" thing isn't actually a real thing. What's more likely, I think, is that the CEO meant was that if he declined the offer, the board may fire him and replace him with someone who won't decline it. So if it's an eventuality either way, he may as well be t…

“Legal obligation to shareholders” is absolutely a thing, in the USA anyway. “Fiduciary duty” is the term to Google.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audio ultimately leads to a 1D data track. Ways to play that track is comparatively well understood, and well abstracted from the workload itself. We've been using 3.5mm jack at scale since the original Walkman, for example. That's 1979. Graphics on the other hand constantly changes. Apple II around the same timeframe had 280×192 resolution -not even 4:3 aspect ratio- and 16 color that only existed because of a hack…

> Audio ultimately leads to a 1D data track. Do people here really not know anything about surround sound, and multichannel sound in general? Apple's new surround support? Gaming use of Ambisonics? Film scoring? Do they really not understand how you need to mix differently for phone playback, car playback and "stereo system" playback (or at least pick one because that's the best you can do) ? Sigh.

I thought it would be easy to understand the difference between x channels that play 1D data (that remained unchanged for half a century almost) and going from 50 thousand pixels to 15 million, with dozens of different sizes and aspect ratios would be readily apparent. Alas, I was mistaken.

Sigh.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#163

Now Figma can become the de-facto choice for its software category and a merger was proved to be ultimately unnecessary for its survival and was a clear attempt at Adobe trying to buyout their competition because they can't seem to compete. I think overall this is a good thing. Adobe owning Figma isn't a great promise that it would be make Figma better, improve Figma in any way, nor keep Figma on the path of making h…

5 years and Figma is oob.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#164
post #155
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is anecdotes like this that make me think that the public shareholder model is fundamentally flawed and a large part of why many American companies are struggling to truly build long term value, and many once great companies have been destroyed by beancounters to bleating calls of shareholder value.

I don't know how much of this is actually a problem with the shareholder model (though I hate it). From what I understand, the whole "legal obligation to shareholders" thing isn't actually a real thing. What's more likely, I think, is that the CEO meant was that if he declined the offer, the board may fire him and replace him with someone who won't decline it. So if it's an eventuality either way, he may as well be t…

Corporate boards do have quite a few legal obligations to their shareholders. The often-mistaken popular view is that companies are required to seek ever-increasing profit above all else.

While that isn't true, if a corporate board takes actions that are contrary to shareholder interest, they open themselves to liability. In the case the GP is talking about, where a buyout offer exceeded any amount of return that the company could possibly provide while remaining independent, shareholders would absolutely have a case if that acquisition offer had actually been turned down.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#165
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but did Figma even need to sell in the first place? I've worked a company that was profitable, operated well, growing ... but were sold and the CEO said (I'll get the words not quite right): "I fought for keeping independent and not selling, that's how I've kept that company and I wanted it to stay that way. But the offer was increased into the range where I didn't feel like I could survive a legal challenge (if it…

I know many people who joined Figma specifically because of the promise and goal of a large buyout. Even if it isn't explicitly stated, in most circumstances people want to go public at the right price.

Those are the kinds of people you never want working for you. And, frankly, the kinds of people I hate working with. I get that for many people a job is just a job, but these sorts of people tend to be opportunists who are just there for the hope of a big payday, and will likely be a drag on you and your team while they're there.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#166
post #148
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U just keep private and not ever get share holders if you want full control

Hard when you "have" to give VC equity to get off the ground.

dont hate the player hate the game, then

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#167
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how much of this is actually a problem with the shareholder model (though I hate it). From what I understand, the whole "legal obligation to shareholders" thing isn't actually a real thing. What's more likely, I think, is that the CEO meant was that if he declined the offer, the board may fire him and replace him with someone who won't decline it. So if it's an eventuality either way, he may as well be t…

“Legal obligation to shareholders” is absolutely a thing, in the USA anyway. “Fiduciary duty” is the term to Google.

No it's not. I've been in discussions about it here and nobody could cite a law.

If one can't cite a specific US code, it's not a legal obligation. It could be in a charter or contract, but it's not US law. Feel free to correct me if you can cite one. I believe this is a good starting point: https://www.congress.gov/advanced-search/legislation

Fiduciary duty doesn't apply to most non-finance related companies. It's mostly something that investment firms are required to do. And you'll know if you become their client. If Google is doing that they definitely need broken up. It means they have a duty to use your money to make more for you, and not lose any if possible.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#168

I wish Adobe InDesign had more competition for desktop/print publishing as well. Affinity Designer/Publisher seems a popular alternative for Windows and Mac for a one-off cost. Scribus is open source and runs on Linux but I found it hard to use and slow on a modest document. Does anyone know of other good options on Linux? I've seen some posts about Affinity running unofficially in Wine but it seems a risky choice. T…

The problem with InDesign is that publishing industry is too small. Most people don't know InDesign but its used to produce practically every single print, book, label, poster ever. Yet it is too small for any company to care about to create competition (except Affinity).

Funny thing is InDesign by itself already had most of what you need for digital design tool like Figma (and more). At some point (when InDesign still used to get some new features) responsive ebooks/pdfs were all the rage and InDesign even has "responsive" modes (something Figma doesnt). They wouldn't be able to make it multiplayer but with quite minor tweaks and better positioning InDesign could have been the tool for UI design.

Who knows maybe it means Affinity is well positioned to make UI design tool. I know that many designers are starting too see local only software as advantage because their work can't be stolen by upcoming Figma AI designer.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#169

Killing Adobe XD because they couldn't buy Figma for $20 billion means to me that they would never have been a good owner for Figma. XD may have not had as many features as Figma, but it was still a decent program and could have been a very good competitor to Figma for far less than the cost of buying out that company. The buy-in of Adobe's subscription model was a compelling reason for my employers to provide only X…

> The buy-in of Adobe's subscription model was a compelling reason for my employers to provide only XD to me for my work.

And this is how we all end up using spatulas to drive nails.

Re: Adobe gives up on web-design product to rival Figma after deal collapse

#170

Adobe XD was meant to take on Sketch, and failed at that, which meant it was fully two generations behind Figma. They couldn't compete, and as a company they have no capacity for making innovative web design products. They do seem to have a capacity for ruining the ones they buy, so I'm glad this attempt failed.

InVision + Sketch was trivially replaced by Figma in my workflow long ago, cross platform support and working in the browser left them in the dust.
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