Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by benreesman » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 3:54 PM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #250

benreesman wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely proves that she was right. If you care about market cap? She was right. If you care about employee comp? She was right. If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. The idea that there's a significant lobby on fucking Hacker News unhappy that a startup IPO'd for a zillion bucks and…

IPOs are a really tough path, and can significantly alter the business. I'd hesitate to hold up the big one for this year as vindication for her entire approach. The vast majority of growth tech companies are not going to go public, but need to release value for investors and employees, and PE or acquisition is the only path open to them. If you've ever had experience with PE you might not want to deal with that, and…

Sure, and a counter-argument of the form "acquisitions from such valuation to such valuation were down such percent, we interviewed the following founders and these Corp Dev lawyers spoke on the condition of anonymity..." would be an interesting one. But AFAICT at everything but Goliath scale, M&A was actually up over the period.

So as usual here we are with the epic showdown of Data and Vibes...and in an obvious landslide Vibes takes it home.

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

#252

Post by MattDamonSpace » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 3:59 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #212

dabedee wrote: post #177

I think the Figma IPO proves Khan was right. $60B market cap today vs the $20B Adobe offered in 2023. There was some criticism about regulatory overreach when the deal got blocked. Now Figma employees are rich, the design tools market stays competitive, and we have another major independent tech company instead of just another Adobe product line. This is exactly why we need regulators willing to tell Big Tech "no" so…

It absolutely proves that she was right. If you care about market cap? She was right. If you care about employee comp? She was right. If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. The idea that there's a significant lobby on fucking Hacker News unhappy that a startup IPO'd for a zillion bucks and…

It wasn’t the outcome, it was the bad reasoning and the overall desire for interference

Does it really matter if Figma was bought vs IPO? No of course not. Khan just needs a poster child for her overall intervention philosophy.

Pointing at Figma as a success for her overall world view is like the religious who say “oh god saved me from that flood” while ignoring the hundreds who did die. The Almighty wanted them to die? Or…?

If you’re gonna claim the successes you have to claim the failures

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

#253

Post by benreesman » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:03 PM UTC

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #252

benreesman wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely proves that she was right. If you care about market cap? She was right. If you care about employee comp? She was right. If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. The idea that there's a significant lobby on fucking Hacker News unhappy that a startup IPO'd for a zillion bucks and…

It wasn’t the outcome, it was the bad reasoning and the overall desire for interference Does it really matter if Figma was bought vs IPO? No of course not. Khan just needs a poster child for her overall intervention philosophy. Pointing at Figma as a success for her overall world view is like the religious who say “oh god saved me from that flood” while ignoring the hundreds who did die. The Almighty wanted them to d…

What failures? Tech has been Godzilla stomping every conceivable obstacle to total world domination. Its like half the fucking stock market.

Someone caught a shooting star in the palm of their hand one time and this happened.

What are you talking about?

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

#254

Post by ashwindharne » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

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.

Should the other players not have also raised VC money if it was such a differentiating advantage? Perhaps they should have sold even more equity than Figma did and raised more money if that would have been the difference maker.

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

#255

Post by api » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #244

api wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a lot of people I’ve talked to who didn’t like Lina Khan not because of the Figma thing but because they thought she was having a chilling effect on acquisitions broadly. The vast majority of startups will never IPO. Acquisition is the only viable exit. That’s because the bar for IPO has risen so high that only massive already incumbent unicorns can reach it. IPO isn’t a way to raise capital to compete. It’s…

Yeah, I have heard that sentiment too. I've never heard so much as a second-hand anecdote that someone was on the track of an acquisition but got the vibe their 50 million dollar acquihire plus was going to just be too much trouble under an activist chairwoman though. It seems to me that the same weaponization of binary tribal thinking in red/blue social stuff has a corollary in "entrepeneur / commie" oversimplificat…

I agree except the part about the new oligarchs doing the manipulating. I think they are manipulating themselves, sucked into these brain rot machines as much as anyone.

I heard a Thiel interview recently where he ranted about Greta Thunberg and the antichrist and used a bunch of very online Xhitter bubble terms like referring to low efficacy as “low-T” and I was like this guy needs to touch grass. It didn’t even make a lot of sense.

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

#256

Post by mattmcknight » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

alchemyzach wrote: post #236

mattmcknight wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were independent the whole time and it wasn't considered a success. I suppose IPO is an indicator they might stay independent longer. Now that they are in the public markets even Adobe can buy a few shares. I just don't feel like the IPO event has brought any particular benefits to the consumer and Khan is incorrectly looking at post IPO stock price bounce as some kind of financial indicator that it was a better…

[flagged]

I am trying to explore the ways in which the IPO, in particular, separate from the continued operation of the company, is evidence that blocking M&A is good. I have seen nothing from you supporting Khan's position that the IPO is vindication for blocking M&A.

Her particular claim was that it was "a great reminder that letting startups grow into independently successful businesses, rather than be bought up by existing giants, can generate enormous value.” However, the IPO price was $700M less than the value the company was at three years ago, which, given opportunity costs and inflation, would not seem to be an indicator of enormous value being generated.

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

#257

Post by nicoburns » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #252

benreesman wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely proves that she was right. If you care about market cap? She was right. If you care about employee comp? She was right. If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. The idea that there's a significant lobby on fucking Hacker News unhappy that a startup IPO'd for a zillion bucks and…

It wasn’t the outcome, it was the bad reasoning and the overall desire for interference Does it really matter if Figma was bought vs IPO? No of course not. Khan just needs a poster child for her overall intervention philosophy. Pointing at Figma as a success for her overall world view is like the religious who say “oh god saved me from that flood” while ignoring the hundreds who did die. The Almighty wanted them to d…

> Does it really matter if Figma was bought vs IPO? No of course not.

I think it matters. Look what happened when Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005. The innovative product (Fireworks) that brought many (but not all) many of the innovations that would later come in Sketch and then Figma was left to slowly die because it competed with their flagship product (Photoshop). That delayed innovation in that market segment by around a decade.

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

#258

Post by ddbb33 » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #81

So blocking a sale at a $20B valuation so the company can IPO at a $19.3B valuation 3 years later (a loss of $700M in value over 3 years) is a success?

Yes, more competition is a success.

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

#259

Post by benreesman » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

api wrote: post #255

benreesman wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have heard that sentiment too. I've never heard so much as a second-hand anecdote that someone was on the track of an acquisition but got the vibe their 50 million dollar acquihire plus was going to just be too much trouble under an activist chairwoman though. It seems to me that the same weaponization of binary tribal thinking in red/blue social stuff has a corollary in "entrepeneur / commie" oversimplificat…

I agree except the part about the new oligarchs doing the manipulating. I think they are manipulating themselves, sucked into these brain rot machines as much as anyone. I heard a Thiel interview recently where he ranted about Greta Thunberg and the antichrist and used a bunch of very online Xhitter bubble terms like referring to low efficacy as “low-T” and I was like this guy needs to touch grass. It didn’t even mak…

That's funny in a dark way, especially it being Thiel given that this entire movement/era traces a clear intellectual and emotional lineage to his activism all the way back at least as far as his writing in the student libertarian rag at Stanford in like 94 (and apparently a childhood fixation with Quenta Silmarillien exceeding even my own).

Trapped in his own Intellectual Dark Web one might say.

Yeah, Greta Thurnburg is making the frogs "low-T". What a bunch of fucking losers.

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

#260

Post by dabedee » Sun, Aug 03, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

benreesman wrote: post #212

dabedee wrote: post #177

I think the Figma IPO proves Khan was right. $60B market cap today vs the $20B Adobe offered in 2023. There was some criticism about regulatory overreach when the deal got blocked. Now Figma employees are rich, the design tools market stays competitive, and we have another major independent tech company instead of just another Adobe product line. This is exactly why we need regulators willing to tell Big Tech "no" so…

It absolutely proves that she was right. If you care about market cap? She was right. If you care about employee comp? She was right. If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. The idea that there's a significant lobby on fucking Hacker News unhappy that a startup IPO'd for a zillion bucks and…

I think you're hitting the real divide here. Some people are so ideologically opposed to any regulatory intervention that they can't admit when it works, even when the evidence is staring them in the face. Also notable [0]: "[...] in any given year, we see up to 3,000 merger filings that get reported to us. Around 2% of those actually get a second look by the government, so you have 98% of all deals that, for the most part, are going through. Around 2% of those actually get a second look by the government, so you have 98% of all deals that, for the most part, are going through." The FTC wasn't blocking everything, just the deals that would entrench monopolies.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/15/ftc-chair-lina-khan-on-sta...