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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

#341

Post by maxbond »

terminalshort wrote: post #339
maxbond wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. > None of the FTC's business x3 > > If you care about consumer choice, she was right. > Ok, so this is the FTC's business. You don't think there's relationship between consumer choice and a large number of acquirers? These are basically equivalent statements, they're both saying "markets remain co…

Only in the case where both the acquirer and the target have directly competing products, which is why I specifically mentioned that case and said it would be the FTCs business. (And even then sometimes it doesn't. Google bought Waze, which was a direct competitor to Google Maps, but still both products exist.) And, no, they aren't remotely equivalent statements to each other or to "markets remain competitive." If th…

No, that's just wrong, if you let Adobe buy up all the design tools then you limit designer's choice to just Adobe. Will they come out with a competing product? Maybe. That's their business. But the potential is there, and Adobe has to stay on its toes and can't coast on it's near-monopoly status. Indeed, it's now also possible Figma will come out with products to compete with Adobe. And just the threat of that has the potential to limit all of the hostile behavior towards consumers Adobe has been up to for years.

Which is all to say that the market remains competitive.

If you don't think it's the FTC's business to decide whether or not that 100 to 99 move is significant, then I don't think you understand. Even if it's insignificant - it's their business to make that call. You can disagree with it, but if you think that isn't their balliwick, you're simply mistaken.

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

#342

Post by ethbr1 »

benreesman wrote: post #300
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.

A very self-regulating little arbitrage, because the investors and the monopolies are in the process of merging themselves. This is the part most people seem unwilling to accept: these rich guys are dumb man. When you organize your whole society around rich kids having advantages it only takes a couple of decades before they're all just bad at their jobs. This mafia capitalism isn't even good for the capitalists! The…

The under appreciated drag is which is statistically more likely to be talented?

1. Someone from a wealthy / connected family

2. Someone who scrambled to the top of 100,000 other people

Folks can argue good schools, etc. all they want, but proven ability and drive to outcompete others should be a heavy counter argument against nepotism of all sorts.

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

#343

Post by AnthonyMouse »

dabedee wrote: post #260
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…

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 mos…

> 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.

We have a problem where regulators are bad at their jobs most of the time, and then people develop the heuristic that all regulation is bad.

You need some rules to price major externalities. Not minor externalities, because regulatory overhead and enforcement are themselves externalities and it doesn't do any good to burn $1 in overhead to prevent $0.90 in some other cost. But you want a ban on leaded gasoline.

And you need antitrust rules, because "the market is more efficient" is fundamentally predicated on competitive markets. Real competition is the sine qua non of that actually working. Most government inefficiency is because the government is a monopoly, and private monopolies are just as bad.

The problem is politics breaks everyone's brains. One party says "regulation good" and the other side says "regulation bad" before either of them considers what the regulation actually does. And then you have one party promoting illiterate nonsense like price controls or justifying busybodies who want to micromanage things they don't even understand or trusting the government with mass surveillance data just because they're not a private company, and on the other side you have people with no objections to tying arrangements or companies with double-digit market share buying even more of their competitors.

"Everything should be made as simple as possible but no simpler." That last bit turns out to be kind of important.

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

#344

Post by terminalshort »

maxbond wrote: post #341
terminalshort wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in the case where both the acquirer and the target have directly competing products, which is why I specifically mentioned that case and said it would be the FTCs business. (And even then sometimes it doesn't. Google bought Waze, which was a direct competitor to Google Maps, but still both products exist.) And, no, they aren't remotely equivalent statements to each other or to "markets remain competitive." If th…

No, that's just wrong, if you let Adobe buy up all the design tools then you limit designer's choice to just Adobe. Will they come out with a competing product? Maybe. That's their business. But the potential is there, and Adobe has to stay on its toes and can't coast on it's near-monopoly status. Indeed, it's now also possible Figma will come out with products to compete with Adobe. And just the threat of that has t…

Hypothetical future competing products is a ridiculous standard. By that logic the FTC could block anything because the acquirer could always in some hypothetical future be a competitor.

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

#345

Post by maxbond »

terminalshort wrote: post #344
maxbond wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's just wrong, if you let Adobe buy up all the design tools then you limit designer's choice to just Adobe. Will they come out with a competing product? Maybe. That's their business. But the potential is there, and Adobe has to stay on its toes and can't coast on it's near-monopoly status. Indeed, it's now also possible Figma will come out with products to compete with Adobe. And just the threat of that has t…

Hypothetical future competing products is a ridiculous standard. By that logic the FTC could block anything because the acquirer could always in some hypothetical future be a competitor.

It's ridiculous to suggest corporations will treat their customers better if they have competition? That if their customers have somewhere else to go they have more negotiating power?

Adobe and Figma are competitors, right now, regardless of whether they have product lines in direct competition, at this moment.

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

#346

Post by benreesman »

maxbond wrote: post #338
terminalshort wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you care about market cap? She was right. None of the FTC's business > If you care about employee comp? She was right. None of the FTC's business > Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. None of the FTC's business x3 > If you care about consumer choice, she was right. Ok, so this is the FTC's business. But does Figma compete with Adob…

> > Number of listings, new potential acquirers for your startup, more diverse office geography, right right right right. > None of the FTC's business x3 > > If you care about consumer choice, she was right. > Ok, so this is the FTC's business. You don't think there's relationship between consumer choice and a large number of acquirers? These are basically equivalent statements, they're both saying "markets remain co…

This is an account not yet three weeks old on a rampage of low-effort shouting about why institutions, honesty, integrity, standards and decency are pointless, counterproductive, and stupid.

I think it might be an alt for Peter Thiel himself! We're in the presence of greatness friend, we should just lean back and be enlightened.

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

#347

Post by terminalshort »

maxbond wrote: post #345
terminalshort wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetical future competing products is a ridiculous standard. By that logic the FTC could block anything because the acquirer could always in some hypothetical future be a competitor.

It's ridiculous to suggest corporations will treat their customers better if they have competition? That if their customers have somewhere else to go they have more negotiating power? Adobe and Figma are competitors, right now, regardless of whether they have product lines in direct competition, at this moment.

No they aren't. Having product lines in direct competition is the fundamental definition of being a competing business.

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

#348

Post by edoceo »

mulmen wrote: post #286
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…

> 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.

Hard to raise money with that plan. The VC world wants the 10x. Difference between SME and Startup.

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

#349

Post by akudha »

dabedee wrote: post #260
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…

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 mos…

Some people are so ideologically opposed to any regulatory intervention

These are people who are ideologically opposed to any regulatory intervention? How can such an extreme position even begin to make sense? This is like letting boxers (or MMA fighters) fight in the ring without a referee, isn't it? As it is, there are lax rules that are getting even more relaxed by the day and even those lax rules aren't enforced consistently, for big businesses and those with money.

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

#350

Post by benreesman »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #343
dabedee wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mos…

> 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. We have a problem where regulators are bad at their jobs most of the time, and then people develop the heuristic that all regulation is bad. You need some rules to price major externalities. Not minor externalities, because regulatory overhead and enforceme…

Your whole comment is good but I want to signal boost the most important point you made.

Private cartels are just bad governments with even less accountability or incentive to be efficient. Take the worst DMV office in the world and put it in charge of something way more important than license plates.

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