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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

#321

Post by boroboro4 »

mattmcknight wrote: post #256
alchemyzach wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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…

The current market cap of Figma is around 60B if I read it correctly. Yes, not all of it was IPOd, but from purely this perspective it was hugely successful. But then it’s also unfair to compare this market cap as is, because I would expect Figma as separate entity will grow better than Adobe as a whole. Meaning that people who’ll hold Figma stocks right now have a chance to have better returns in a future.

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

#322

Post by aetherson »

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…

Suppose that you have an opportunity to play a game. The game is you roll a fair normal six sided die. If it comes up a 6, you get $60B. If it comes up a 5 or 4 you get $30B. If it comes up 3 or less, you get $0.

This is clearly a valuable game! It is worth in expectation $20B. But it also has a 50% chance of being worthless to you.

Someone offers to buy it from you for $20B. You agree, giving up some upside for some downside protection.

But then someone else says that's not allowed. So you play the game and you roll a six and get $60B.

Does that prove the person who made you play it rather than sell it was "right," ex ante?

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

#323

Post by scarface_74 »

assword wrote: post #317
scarface_74 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now the monopolies are just hiring away all of the people they want from the startup and leaving the company as a shell of its former self - leaving both investors and the employees left behind high and dry.

> So now the monopolies are just hiring away all of the people they want from the startup and leaving the company as a shell of its former self I thought they were dumping everyone at the moment. Unless you’re an AI researcher.

And notice who gets hired…

That means if there are 10 developer - 7 working on the product and 3 working on the fundamental AI problem, those 7 aren’t going to be left (the company didn’t want the product anyway) and the 3 researchers are going to be hired.

Something similar happened with Google and Windsurf. So who benefited from the anti acquisition mood of the previous FTC? Not most of the employees who could have made more just working for a public company in the first place and not even the investors.

Google accomplished the same thing with less red tape and didn’t have to hire the people they didn’t want.

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

#324

Post by const_cast »

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?

Yes. For example, Apple has complete control over their App Store. It's essentially a small economy in which they are the government, and it's a market they regulate with an iron fist. Because OUR regulators won't.

But they're dictators. There's no democracy, there's no voting, and Apple does whatever it feels is best for them. Just like a dictator would run their country.

There's plenty of mutually beneficial arrangements that Apple unilaterally struck down because they want to maintain their stranglehold on the market.

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

#326

Post by dabedee »

aetherson wrote: post #322
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…

Suppose that you have an opportunity to play a game. The game is you roll a fair normal six sided die. If it comes up a 6, you get $60B. If it comes up a 5 or 4 you get $30B. If it comes up 3 or less, you get $0. This is clearly a valuable game! It is worth in expectation $20B. But it also has a 50% chance of being worthless to you. Someone offers to buy it from you for $20B. You agree, giving up some upside for some…

You raise a valid point about ex ante uncertainty. We can't know future outcomes with certainty, and yes, Figma theoretically could have failed. But antitrust analysis isn't about predicting exact valuations. It's about market structure and competitive dynamics. The FTC had observable facts: Adobe's dominant market share, Figma's rapid growth trajectory, and a purchase price of 50x revenue (extraordinary even for software). These factors suggested Adobe saw Figma as a competitive threat worth eliminating, not just a financial investment. That's the key distinction from your dice game; this wasn't pure randomness but observable market dynamics. You're right that we can't prove the counterfactual. But antitrust law doesn't require certainty, just reasonable probability of competitive harm. The extreme premium Adobe offered was itself evidence they valued removing competition more than acquiring assets. The outcome validates the analysis, but even if Figma had struggled, preserving the possibility of competition has value beyond any single company's success.

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

#327

Post by const_cast »

aurareturn wrote: post #164
franga2000 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not arbitrary, there are many reasons to block the merger and they were explained in depth when the decision was made. Also, the EU and UK also made it clear they were against the merger. In fact, if you look at most reporting, the EU and UK seem to be the main reason they gave up, presumably because they know the US FTC has no teeth, even with a competent chair.

Even if EU and UK wanted to block the deal, it doesn't make it the right thing to do. Free market. I don't have a popular opinion on HN. I don't think Google should be broken up because new technology has made Google search much less needed. I don't think Apple should relinquish control over its app store because it's Apple's platform and they should do what they want. I don't think Adobe should be stopped from buyin…

> Free market

Free market requires maintenance. Laissez-faire is a lie and always has been.

If you let all the companies consolidate into mega monopolies who have a stranglehold on the market, where is the free market?

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

#328

Post by [deleted] »

aetherson wrote: post #322
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…

Suppose that you have an opportunity to play a game. The game is you roll a fair normal six sided die. If it comes up a 6, you get $60B. If it comes up a 5 or 4 you get $30B. If it comes up 3 or less, you get $0. This is clearly a valuable game! It is worth in expectation $20B. But it also has a 50% chance of being worthless to you. Someone offers to buy it from you for $20B. You agree, giving up some upside for some…

[deleted]

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

#329

Post by trhway »

JustExAWS wrote: post #302
jbothma wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any evidence of that?

Google and Windsurf https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/01/more-details-emerge-on-how... Amazon https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/13/big-techs-poaching-... Microsoft and Inflection https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-ai-reverse-acqui-hire-150... Microsoft almost pulled it off with OpenAI during the Altman fiasco.

>Google and Windsurf >https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/01/more-details-emerge-on-how...

that looks strange to me to say the least - a company A's leadership leases completely away the company A's IP to a company B while at the same time getting fat employment offers from the same company B. If it were in Russia i'd say it is a bribe/kickback while in US it looks suspiciously like a huge conflict of interests. How no regulatory agency looked into that...

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

#330

Post by terminalshort »

dabedee wrote: post #326
aetherson wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose that you have an opportunity to play a game. The game is you roll a fair normal six sided die. If it comes up a 6, you get $60B. If it comes up a 5 or 4 you get $30B. If it comes up 3 or less, you get $0. This is clearly a valuable game! It is worth in expectation $20B. But it also has a 50% chance of being worthless to you. Someone offers to buy it from you for $20B. You agree, giving up some upside for some…

You raise a valid point about ex ante uncertainty. We can't know future outcomes with certainty, and yes, Figma theoretically could have failed. But antitrust analysis isn't about predicting exact valuations. It's about market structure and competitive dynamics. The FTC had observable facts: Adobe's dominant market share, Figma's rapid growth trajectory, and a purchase price of 50x revenue (extraordinary even for sof…

But now you are contradicting your initial argument. Here you say that the price offered by Adobe was astronomically high, and therefore an indicator that the offer was not legitimate, but initially you said that the FTC made the right decision because the offer was 3x lower than the IPO price.
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