Lina Khan points to Figma IPO as vindication of M&A scrutiny • Hacker News Board

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

#411

Post by pembrook » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 7:48 AM UTC

kaibee wrote: post #407

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. No, we have a problem where 95% of regulations work so well that no one even remembers that they exist (child labor, etc). A media environment that reports on outliers for clicks and corporations that want to dump industrial waste in rivers.

Right winger says problem is government. Left winger says problem is corporations. Repeat ad nauseum. Yes both can be bad.

95% of regulations and 95% of companies work so fantastically that nobody realizes they exist. Sure.

But re: regulation, that 5% tends to be in the really really important stuff.

How’s housing…and healthcare… and higher education…and the national debt…in the US going?

All of those things make up vastly more than 5% of the economy and are arguably all broken in the US because of poorly designed regulation.

I think assuming most regulation is “good” is an extremely dangerous proposition given regulation is extremely difficult to change or overturn once in place.

It’s important to also remember every regulation requires enforcement at gunpoint. You cannot choose to not follow them.

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

#412

Post by dzonga » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 7:51 AM UTC

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…

the only thing I will refute is the $60Bn market cap is due to IPO. Once they start reporting earnings, in a year or two once the hype dies down we will find the true value.

a lot of tech darlings have been decimated by the stock market. & Adobe can still buy them once they're public, maybe even cheaper than $20bn.

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

#413

Post by GreenWatermelon » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 7:55 AM UTC

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…

Without regulations (which are laws) Dominant companies would just send gangsters to break up rival businesses. They still do that today, but through different strategies e.g. price dumping, where they operate at a loss in order to squash competition, then proceed to hike up prices and extort as much value as possible.

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

#414

Post by steakscience » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 7:56 AM UTC

She was right. But Figma is a legitimate, profitable, and strong business.

The reality is most startups are not like Figma. They would make pretty bad businesses and their only exit strategy is to get acquired.

There's simply no way they could stand on their own legs and go public.

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

#415

Post by GreenWatermelon » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 7:58 AM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #335

cogman10 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when HP bought palm and them proceeded to lay off the entire palm staff and kill all the palm products? The market works best with competion. It's better for the workers, the customers, society and innovation in general. A giant monopoly buying potential competitors is bad for everyone other than owners of that giant monopoly.

Yep, and because HP did that, we now have no mobile smartphones. If only the government would have prevented that!! Caplan said it best. The market is great at doing good things that sound bad. The government is great at doing bad things that sound good.

Imagine a world in which Internet Explorer is the only browser around. That's what would happen without government intervention.

Regulations are literally the only thing slowing down the corporate dystopian future.

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

#416

Post by madeofpalk » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 8:36 AM UTC

MrGilbert wrote: post #183

madeofpalk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figma has a near monopoly because it built the better product. This is the preferred outcome compared to Adobe broadening their monopoly not by building a better product, but just by acquiring/squashing their competition. Monopolies aren't illegal. Preventing competition is the thing we want to stop. As far as I can see, Figma doesn't do anything to give themselves an unfair advantage or prevent other players from en…

Figma had 8 funding rounds in 10 years, according to crunchbase. That is an advantage compared to other players on the market that do not receive VC. If it's fair or not, that’s up to everyones own standards.

Figma is also a company that starts with an "F". Whether thats fair or not is up to everyone's standards.

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

#417

Post by madeofpalk » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 8:51 AM UTC

steakscience wrote: post #414

She was right. But Figma is a legitimate, profitable, and strong business. The reality is most startups are not like Figma. They would make pretty bad businesses and their only exit strategy is to get acquired. There's simply no way they could stand on their own legs and go public.

Figma being credible competition to Adobe was the reason the merger was blocked. If Figma was less like Figma, and was a pretty bad business, Adobe would be less interested in acquiring them, and regulators would be even less interested in blocking it.

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

#418

Post by rhet0rica » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 9:35 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #270

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…

If I suggest putting your net worth on black at roulette and it lands on black, does that make my advice right? Khan forced the employees and investors to continue working and gambling on a company they might not have wanted to continue working for or gambling on. It doesn't really matter that the gamble succeeded in this case.

I'm pretty sure no employee wants to work for Adobe.

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

#419

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 9:41 AM UTC

BrenBarn wrote: post #154

conradev wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just a bulk discount: everyday folks simply can’t be relied upon to buy hundreds of millions of dollars the stuff and that’s what the company is selling. Little fish can buy in, but only if the big fish provide liquidity in the first place! In other words: someone needs to be paid to sell it and big buyers need to be incentivized to buy it. Ultimately the IPO price is driven by supply and demand with a limited s…

Saying "big buyers need to be incentivized to buy it" is just another way of saying it's undemocratic. The democratic version would be that there are no big buyers and your IPO gets however much money it gets from small investors and that's it. There don't need to be any companies with a $45 billion IPO.

> democratic version would be that there are no big buyers and your IPO gets however much money it gets from small investors and that's it

…you need money to be a small investor.

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

#420

Post by nabakin » Mon, Aug 04, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #71

nabakin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ownership is a useful framework for sure, but if it comes at the expense of destroying competition, I think we can agree that's not healthy for the economy and society as a whole.

I disagree with the concept of “monopoly” or rent seeking in a free market. And the only way a market becomes non-free is with government regulation

If companies get large enough, you no longer have a free market. You simply have a company so dominate and powerful, they can undercut any new company or product. Not on merit or offering a better product. Purely based on size and its entrenched position.

Let's say company A is monopolizing a market. New company B finds a way to make company A's product providing exactly the same value, except half as expensive. A healthy market would reward company B and consumers both by allowing that innovation to spread, providing a return for those that invented it and a cheaper product for consumers, leading to greater prosperity for society. However, in the market you speak of, company A can simply use their orders of magnitude more wealth to undercut company B for a time until they go bust.

What incentive is there to innovate, to improve, in a market that doesn't reward it?