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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

#381

Post by gkanai »

steveBK123 wrote: post #58

More companies going public, earlier is better for markets and society. Having companies stay private growing from 0 to 100B value allows VC bros to capture all the growth and then unload onto the public via IPO or selling to a larger BigTech firm.

> More companies going public, earlier is better for markets and society.

I would disagree. Japan is a good example of a market where there are a lot of small public companies and they're largely held by the founders. There is not enough share holder pressure and these small public companies are often barely profitable and run poorly. I am sure there are other markets that are similar to Japan where there are publicly traded companies without enough buyers or liquidity or transparency, etc.

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

#382

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

trhway wrote: post #369
JustExAWS wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am well aware of anti poaching agreements between partners or consulting agencies and clients. I am currently working for a consulting company (full time) and in the past I was an employee at AWS ProServe. The contract states you can’t solicit employees under that arrangement. But either side’s employees are free to proactively outreach. I’m not referring to “consulting companies” that are basically doing staff aug…

It isn't about poaching. It is about how vigorously you'd be protecting the interests of your company A in a deal with company B when simultaneously negotiating your personal offer with the company B, especially if it is [even if just implicitly] packaged together i.e. "the offer happens only if the deal happens." You don't see a conflict of interests here?

There is no evidence that any of these companies had contracts with the acquiring companies before reaching out to the employees.

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

#383

Post by lukeschlather »

terminalshort wrote: post #330
dabedee wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the argument is that Adobe willing to pay a high price is a good signal that Figma was not a dice roll but actually worth much more than Adobe was willing to pay.

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

#384

Post by refurb »

digitaltrees wrote: post #370
refurb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet there are plenty of examples of monopoly or near monopoly businesses getting their butts handed to them by startups. Yahoo, BlackBerry, Kodak, Nokia, Sears. So it’s clearly not “once you have a monopoly it’s game over for competition”. Markets aren’t stagnant, and as they change it provides opportunities for new competitors to do that “new thing” better than the monopolies.

With the exception of yahoo (which is still a large company I should note), None of those examples were killed by a start up competitor. They were killed by foundational technology shifts that were orthogonal to the industry. Yahoo, is the closest example with google, but kind of proves Kahns point in that a competitor they tried to buy—-google—- refused to be acquired and then innovated them out of the market. Imagi…

> They were killed by foundational technology shifts that were orthogonal to the industry.

That's the point. Markets aren't stagnant. When changes happen, monopolies are susceptible to being unseated.

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

#385

Post by maxbond »

terminalshort wrote: post #347
maxbond wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt their executives agree that one another are not a competitive threat. They wouldn't have tried to merge if they weren't playing ball in the same court.

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

#386

Post by thayne »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #364
benreesman wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Private cartels are just bad governments with even less accountability or incentive to be efficient . It's kind of six of one, half a dozen of the other. You can't vote out a monopolist, but unless there is a law against competing with them, there is a threshold for how bad they can get before somebody actually does. The problem is that threshold can be way past the point of anywhere you want to be. Whereas governm…

> but unless there is a law against competing with them

Ah, but that is why the monopoly uses its considerable resources to lobby passing laws that at least make it more difficult for someone to compete with them.

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

#387

Post by terminalshort »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #361
terminalshort wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it really isn't. It's not remotely the FTCs job to regulate that type of thing, and I really don't think you would want it to be. Would you rather have a system where competing companies have to get government approval before extending offers to you? You know who would love that system? Google.

> have to get government approval before That is not the only form of regulation, and not the form that would be applied here. This would be after the fact, going after companies that try to pull things like this.

But companies should be able to pull things like this. If a company isn't paying market rate I see no problem with a competitor destroying it by hiring away all its best employees.

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

#388

Post by terminalshort »

lukeschlather wrote: post #383
terminalshort wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the argument is that Adobe willing to pay a high price is a good signal that Figma was not a dice roll but actually worth much more than Adobe was willing to pay.

If it was known that Figma was worth more than Adobe was willing to pay, then why did Figma take the deal?

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

#389

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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…

The lashing she gets around here is disturbing.

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

#390

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #378
JustExAWS wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now you want companies to seek government approval before they can hire a certain number of people from a company? What if Google wanted to hire me and 3 buddies from our startup but didn’t want to hire the secretary or more realistically they only needed the backend developers. But didn’t care about hiring the web developer? Who exactly does that benefit? Not the employees. Maybe the investors? Do you really want…

> seek government approval before There's a neighboring comment that used almost the exact same wording that I already replied to. In short: No. > What if Google wanted to hire me and 3 buddies from our startup but didn’t want to hire the secretary or more realistically they only needed the backend developers. But didn’t care about hiring the web developer? Is your startup like 10 people? Worth much less than a billi…

So what laws do you suggest that the government pass that both stop Google from offering me a highly skilled and sought after AI professional (not really, we are speaking hypothetically) or my team and don’t suppress my ability to make as much money as the market will give me?
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