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Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

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Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#271

Post by danpalmer »

madeofpalk wrote: post #6

Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. See also, "Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices." https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-...

> Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices

Great news, where do I testify? Adobe tried to bribe me personally to not fight their subscription cancellation policies for the company I was representing. Given how obviously unimpressed I was with the whole thing and how I was clearly not the target market of a creative cloud subscription, I can only assume that this is a policy that the sales rep tried to push, rather than a one-off they thought might work.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#272

Post by duringmath »

wg0 wrote: post #265
duringmath wrote: post #85

The US should start doing something about these foreign governments meddling in US business before it's too late. EU and UK and seemingly everyone else is passing laws and setting up bureaucracies specifically to implement unfair trade restrictions and barriers against US companies and they're basically doing it unopposed, you'd think these actions would at least trigger some tariff threats and WTO complains sadly th…

Let's forget Europe and let's focus on the US market alone. If we do the math, we have to ask - where would those 20 billion dollars come from that were to be paid by Adobe to Figma investors? I'm sure not from Adobe's coffers, their bean counters would place them onto subscription pricing with a time cap to recoup all that cost. For sure. I would assume that regulators aren't unaware of that in the said markets (UK/…

And? Companies aren't allowed to make money anymore?

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#273

Post by costcofries »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #210
madeofpalk wrote: post #6

Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. See also, "Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices." https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-...

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.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#274

Post by mbesto »

raiyu wrote: post #149

Anyone else think this has nothing to do with the regulatory agencies but instead the market has dramatically shifted in the past 15 months in terms of valuations and this is a nice cover to cancel the deal? Figma still gets $1B "investment" without giving up any equity or control and Adobe gets to walk away from a massive $20B fee. Adobe makes $17B a year in revenue, they would need some pretty strong growth out of…

> Adobe makes $17B a year in revenue, they would need some pretty strong growth out of Figma to justify the price tag especially after valuations came down.

That's not it works.

1. Adobe is at $19B in revenue

2. Adobe's market cap is $272B and just shy of its ATH.

3. Acquisitions, especially at this level, are usually paid with debt and equity, not just cash.

4. The proposed acquisition smells of both one for value (e.g. we buy you and we add $20B to our market cap...ok thats not exactly how it works, but that's the general ide) and one for defense (protect our existing market cap).

5. You have no idea what Figma's revenue and growth rates our (speculation says $400M rev). If you borrow at 10% interest to acquire the biz and the company is growing their profit annually at 20%, then Adobe can still net out in the long run. (again, not that simple, but illustrative is the point)

Could Adobe have overpaid given the timing? Absolutely.

Could Adobe have realized this and when it came time to go through anti-trust they just threw the b-team lawyers at it? Totally plausible.

> And if it was regulatory, then shouldn't those agencies come out and say "We blocked this, no go."

Not necessarily. Behind closed doors, they might have said "during our reviews with regulators we've been advised that the fight with regulators would be too risky and costly if we didn't succeed"

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#275

Post by Kaijo »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #210
madeofpalk wrote: post #6

Excellent news. I think there should be more products, more companies, and more competition. Adobe just buying up it's competition will only ever directly hurt consumers. See also, "Adobe says the FTC is looking into its subscription cancellation practices." https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/15/24003532/adobe-says-the-...

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.

Maybe they are hampered by "doing the right thing" and only training on Adobe Stock content?

Firefly (Adobe's generative AI) works well if you're already stuck in a Photoshop-heavy workflow, for quick successive generations right in the canvas if you're editing or extending an existing image. Better than Stable Diffusion Photoshop plugins I've tried.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#276

Post by BurningFrog »

londons_explore wrote: post #84
hallway_monitor wrote: post #7

It looks like regulators are actually doing their job. I would love to see more of this, along with breaking up companies that have gotten too big for their britches.

The problem is nearly all company mergers, both big and small, are detrimental to competition... Even my local corner store merging with a corner store in the next town over is bad for suppliers (combined negotiations when buying stock), and bad for consumers (prices set the same between the two towns). I wonder what a world where company mergers were banned would look like?

If companies can't be sold, there is less reason to start them.

In the mainstream economist view, mergers are generally good, both for the companies and society. If they don't produce some efficiency surplus, there is no reason for the companies to do them.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#277

Post by cantSpellSober »

madeofpalk wrote: post #216
cantSpellSober wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Adobe product is intended to compete with Figma, Adobe XD?

Once upon a time, digital product design happened in Photoshop and Illustrator. Then competitors like Sketch and Figma came out with a better product. This made Adobe create XD to compete, but it was unable to make a good product so instead they tried to purcahse their competition instead of making something better. 9 months after Adobe announced it was to purchase Figma (and 3 months before it hoped the deal would c…

Fireworks tried to fill the gaps between PS and Illustrator, but never got traction.

> Adobe discontinued XD

That was my understanding as well, hmm

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#278

Post by jay-barronville »

eigenvalue wrote: post #75
mbauman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect that to only get paid if solely one side were responsible for blowing up the deal. This is expressly saying both have mutually agreed.

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…

1 billi and they didn’t even have to give up any equity. I’m not a fan of the regulators screwing this deal the way they have (primarily due to the precedent they’re setting), but in the grand scheme of things, methinks this is actually a great outcome for Figma. 15 months of hassle with $1B cash at the end, to be delivered within 3 business days.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#279

Post by Hasu »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #110
ceejayoz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired. The vast majority of companies are little "lifestyle" businesses without any intention of ever getting acquired by anyone. Your local pizza shop doesn't expect to be a unicorn.

And *this* is The Key difference between an entrepreneur and a mom & pop. That said, even a mom & pop should be mindful of exit. What happens when the owner(s) wants to retire? Or has a serious health issue? Or has a family member with a health issue? Etc.? You don't have to be a unicorn to build something that someone else wants to acquire. Editorial: And this is why I dislike words like solopreneur, mompreneur, and…

> But that's not a 'preneur. If you are the business and the business is you, you're ability to exit is highly limited. That's not a 'preneur. If you get hit by a bus and your customers are screwed and the business tanks. That's not a 'preneur.

Sorry, but it absolutely is. Entrepreneurship is just starting a business and taking on the majority of the risks and rewards. There is nothing in the definition that says you have to sell the business or exit in any way.

I'd argue that taking on VC money is actually less entrepreneurial than going it alone - you're offloading a big chunk of the risk to your investors.

Re: Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger

#280

Post by vinyl7 »

dkyc wrote: post #50
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with some other company buying-up Figma, just not Adobe. Microsoft could buy them (and hopefully not repeat what happened to Expression Blend) - or maybe Alludo could resurrect the Corel brand and launch Figma under that title?

The reality is that for extremely high-growth companies such as Figma, only companies with an extremely strong existing business and strategic fit can afford to acquire them. Corel, for example, was valued at $1bn in their 2019 acquisition. There's absolutely no way they could acquire Figma. At the same time, VCs are betting on Figma-like outsized exits for their model work. I get people are dying to stick it to the…

Back in the olden days before the free-money-zero-interest rate policy, companies subsisted on selling their product, not their company.
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