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

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

#281

Post by tenuousemphasis »

stephen_cagle wrote: post #246

I wonder if a simpler solution to all this regulartion would be something like imposing a tax (fee?) when larger companies acquire smaller companies? So something like, "For every order of magnitude difference between the acquirer and the aquiree, there will be a 100% tax on the acquisition price paid to the US Federal government." So this would basically encourage companies to either have their own IPO (no fee at al…

Chesterton's Fence:

>In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, "I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away." To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: "If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

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

#282

Post by kgwgk »

littlestymaar wrote: post #130
austhrow743 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s unrelated to the IPO.

How? A VC-backed company must have an exit path for its investors at some point, and this exit is either: - sell the company to a bigger player, reinforcing their dominant position (often close to monopolistic in tech). - go to IPO, keeping the company independence and fighting power concentration.

There is a third option. (According to some LLM that will remain unnamed Vungle, Wrike, and Acquia are textbook cases of direct VC‑backed startups being bought out by private equity without an IPO or corporate acquisition. Not verified.)

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

#283

Post by mschuster91 »

pests wrote: post #275
nicoburns wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Fireworks was great when I was a young teen and first learning the difference vector graphics could make. Let’s not forget our beloved Flash, who knows how Macromedia would have handled it and maybe it wouldn’t have had to be removed from browsers under Adobe’s watch due to security issues. I almost never see anyone mention Macromedia in relation to Flash these days, almost as if history has rewritten it to an Adobe…

> who knows how Macromedia would have handled it and maybe it wouldn’t have had to be removed from browsers under Adobe’s watch due to security issues.

Flash always was a dumpsterfire, and so were virtually all browser plugins using native code. There's a reason NPAPI was deprecated eventually.

The exception of course is ActiveX. There was no way to ever make that shitshow even reasonably safe, simply given how its execution model was.

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

#284

Post by deadpannini »

benreesman wrote: post #224
roenxi wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Big Tech is especially good at this (its arguably far more their speciality than technology is). Well, yes. But that does seem to gloss over the important part which is how they do it - hiring lobbyists and influencing the official regulators. If the frame is that someone is going to be the most powerful force in the market then sure, but the government setting it to be a particular body by fiat just creates a ripe…

Time and again people make the utterly unsubstantiated claim that attack dog regulators like Lina Khan are actually good for big business and bad for the small guy. Year after year, big business lobbies, bribes, cajoles, blackmails, whatever it takes to get rid of attack dog regulators like Lina Khan. I'm sorry friend, history does not say what you think it does. History says that good outcomes come from either bruta…

If they hate Lina Khan, it's because she's liable to make demands on them without knowing anything about their business. In the worst case, her office turns outright extortionist, as the current administration is bent on demonstrating.

None of that conflicts with the observation that large, well-financed, entrenched players better at navigating regulatory obstacles than small upstarts.

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

#285

Post by bko »

benreesman wrote: post #206
bko wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It means that markets organize somehow. Even black markets in prison have rules (and for all I know, sensible ones under the circumstances). The drug trade has rules and norms. Cartels form and collude, the JP Morgans or Goulds of the world see excessive competition next to their neat steel or railroad trusts and decide to organize it. And sometimes this can even be an improvement (those old telephone poles with like…

That may all be true but I don't see how it relates. Adobe can't prevent figma from going public if it refuses their offer. It's an open market. Nothing stops new competitors from joining.

Only regulators have absolute power in this regard. I'd prefer decentralized power

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

#286

Post by mulmen »

api wrote: post #242
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…

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…

> The vast majority of startups will never IPO. Acquisition is the only viable exit.

Or you could run the business profitably and not exit at all.

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

#287

Post by NewJazz »

timr wrote: post #63
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a Khan fan, like, at all, but by the time you're at the point where the FTC is getting involved in your M&A, you've crossed the threshold of success; all the signals to future startups about your path being promising have been sent.

I disagree. A lot of smaller acquisitions went away during the Khan reign, and from what I was hearing it wasn’t coincidental. Basically the random and aggressive nature of it was having a chilling effect on all M&A. Why would you go thorough the hassle of a small acquisition (as a buyer) if you knew there was a even a 10% chance that the FTC was going to take an interest?

Do you have a source for these claims? Specifically smaller M/As being skipped or killed.

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

#288

Post by Apocryphon »

lvl155 wrote: post #248
Apocryphon wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, what experience did Musk have in aerospace when he founded SpaceX?

He had money. Why do you keep conflating people doing business using their own money with appointing government officials with zero experience?

I thought this place was against credentialism and all about experimentation utilizing people who show promise? Whither “talent investing”?

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

#289

Post by benreesman »

deadpannini wrote: post #284
benreesman wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time and again people make the utterly unsubstantiated claim that attack dog regulators like Lina Khan are actually good for big business and bad for the small guy. Year after year, big business lobbies, bribes, cajoles, blackmails, whatever it takes to get rid of attack dog regulators like Lina Khan. I'm sorry friend, history does not say what you think it does. History says that good outcomes come from either bruta…

If they hate Lina Khan, it's because she's liable to make demands on them without knowing anything about their business. In the worst case, her office turns outright extortionist, as the current administration is bent on demonstrating. None of that conflicts with the observation that large, well-financed, entrenched players better at navigating regulatory obstacles than small upstarts.

False, wrong, mistaken, and other balderdash.

They don't have anything against regulators and they certainly don't have anything against dumb regulators.

They've got a little red laser dot on the forehead of regulators who don't want a payday after a term of "public service".

"Because we poor public servants are always looking for some fat, private sectors payoff down the road. But I'm not looking, and by the time they can pull the strings to force me out, they'll be ruined."

- Chrisjen Avasarala

https://youtu.be/yBFJGz5P_G8

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

#290

Post by scarface_74 »

On the other hand, now you see companies that don’t want to deal with government blocking acquisitions do they just get all of the people they want from startups and leave the rest of the employees high and dry and the investors worse off.

https://www.reuters.com/business/google-hires-windsurf-ceo-r...

Unlike Figma, companies rarely want the startup’s product and usually end up either abandoning it or making it a part of their own offerings by getting their new hires to write it from scratch.

Even when they do need the acquiring companies IP, they license the IP and then poach the employees.

Microsoft almost did that too with OpenAI during the Altman fiasco.

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