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

Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 451 posts

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#191

Post by sprinkly-dust »

bko wrote: post #186
yard2010 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA that no regulator simply means the sharkest shark regulates. There is no such thing as no regulator. People will regulate. The question is who and how

What does this mean? If there is no regulator, someone else will use force to prevent voluntary mutually beneficial deals from taking place?

That is one of the possible outcomes right? Producers have an incentive to collude and not compete with one another. They could create a consortium to fix prices, and use tactics such as acquisitions or _dissuasion_ to prevent new, more efficient competitors from undercutting their prices, thus distorting a free market equilibrium.

The consortium creates an oligopoly which prevents mutually beneficial deals that would have otherwise taken place in a regulated competitive free market between consumers and producers.

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#192

Post by skrebbel »

MrGilbert wrote: post #183
madeofpalk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figma has a near monopoly because it built the better product. This is the preferred outcome compared to Adobe broadening their monopoly not by building a better product, but just by acquiring/squashing their competition. Monopolies aren't illegal. Preventing competition is the thing we want to stop. As far as I can see, Figma doesn't do anything to give themselves an unfair advantage or prevent other players from en…

Figma had 8 funding rounds in 10 years, according to crunchbase. That is an advantage compared to other players on the market that do not receive VC. If it's fair or not, that’s up to everyones own standards.

You do not "receive" VC, you sell shares (and control). You write as if it's some sort of grant that Figma uniquely got access to.

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#193

Post by markdown »

virgilp wrote: post #171
BrenBarn wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "big buyers need to be incentivized to buy it" is just another way of saying it's undemocratic. The democratic version would be that there are no big buyers and your IPO gets however much money it gets from small investors and that's it. There don't need to be any companies with a $45 billion IPO.

I feel like complaining about things being "undemocratic" is like complaining about a software system's architecture that "it's not microservices". Not everything needs to be - and some things would be actively harmed by making them "democratic". I wouldn't want drug approval to be a democratic process. Raising capital can be done "democratically" if the founders want to. They can use direct listing. IPO is an option…

> Not everything needs to be

Not everything, sure. But this one more than most, needs to be democratic. If you don't see the wealth inequality today in which the 1% own 50% of the worlds wealth, and you don't see where this is inevitably going to lead, then I don't know what to say.

Stay woke at r/latestagecapitalism

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#194

Post by [deleted] »

skrebbel wrote: post #192
MrGilbert wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figma had 8 funding rounds in 10 years, according to crunchbase. That is an advantage compared to other players on the market that do not receive VC. If it's fair or not, that’s up to everyones own standards.

You do not "receive" VC, you sell shares (and control). You write as if it's some sort of grant that Figma uniquely got access to.

[deleted]

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#195

Post by passwordoops »

bko wrote: post #186
yard2010 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA that no regulator simply means the sharkest shark regulates. There is no such thing as no regulator. People will regulate. The question is who and how

What does this mean? If there is no regulator, someone else will use force to prevent voluntary mutually beneficial deals from taking place?

I think that's what the comment meant. Take it metaphorically

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#196

Post by mistercheph »

DenverR wrote: post #88
kelnos wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do love it. Companies don't exist solely to enrich their founders, they exist to provide a benefit to society. There needs to be a balance, of course, but if allowing a sale does not benefit society, then we should not allow it. > your startup You're under the misconception that companies "belong" to individuals. Companies are legal frameworks that society has decided upon. We could legally decide that M&A just isn…

Congratulations you’ve just described central planning. So “society” should be able to veto a sale, but when payroll is due the owners are on the hook?

Actually, the owners not being on the hook when payroll comes due and the business is out of cash is exactly the protection that society has extended to incorporated businesses. But I'd be happy to horse trade unregulated m&a activity for owners, boardmembers and executives having full liability exposure, financial and criminal.

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#198

Post by wat10000 »

vikramkr wrote: post #132
wat10000 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t more IPOs do an auction to set the price? Trying to determine the “right” price ahead of time seems like a really bad way to do things.

People like it when an IPO pops. It's a good news story and it makes all the banks who participated happy. If it was priced perfectly it'd get reported as the stock was flat, if it's a bit underpriced then you get headlines as the hot new stock that's taking off

Are headlines really worth billions of dollars?

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#199

Post by lvl155 »

richwater wrote: post #4

Lina Khan's obsession with "big is bad", especially her preexisting prejudice of Big Tech should have disqualified her from any position well before she took the wheel. How many times did the FTC fail in court under her watch? More than I can count on two hands. Meanwhile local and state utility and cable tv monopolies continue to _flourish_ without so much as a peep.

I don’t get the downvotes. He’s just stating his opinion. Lina Khan had zero real-world experience. She wrote ONE widely circulated opinion piece in law school. It contained barely any rigorous economic analysis. This is akin to giving authority to some 21-yo philosophy major to direct the entire direction of US AI policies.

Re: Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny

#200

Post by lucianbr »

bko wrote: post #186
yard2010 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PSA that no regulator simply means the sharkest shark regulates. There is no such thing as no regulator. People will regulate. The question is who and how

What does this mean? If there is no regulator, someone else will use force to prevent voluntary mutually beneficial deals from taking place?

If there is no regulator, the company with the most money will use its money to prevent any deals that are inconvenient for it from taking place. Often those would be beneficial to the other parties or to the consumers.

Maybe it's not a great choice of words to say here "the large company regulates the space" but it's definitely a problem worth pointing out.

Post reply on HN