71–80 of 100 posts
Shortening “Norfolk Southern” to “Norfolk” makes this confusing to read. Norfolk is a city (and former HQ of Norfolk Southern). “Union” isn’t shortened the same… Also, railroads are already monopoly, it’s not like anyone can lay down new tracks, and operators aren’t required to allow 3rd parties on their networks…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain why you think any "startup" "needs an exit"? Why should we accept businesses that cannot persist on their own? This comment caught me off guard with how blatantly VC-sycophantic it is.
It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…
But why do they deserve a payday? If the public markets aren't willing to buy in to IPOs at the given IPO sale price, then perhaps the company isn't valued at the funding rounds valuations that only come from a small handful of investors?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain why you think any "startup" "needs an exit"? Why should we accept businesses that cannot persist on their own? This comment caught me off guard with how blatantly VC-sycophantic it is.
It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…
I don't think this is accurate.
People are chomping at the bit to invest into private companies through Tokens on Robinhood. Private companies do not want to deal with accountability so they remain private.
> I guess I view it as chicken and egg. If the huge mega corp companies were broken up or heavily regulated maybe smaller companies wouldn’t need mergers and acquisitions as much because they would be more stable in a fair competitive environment.
If you didn't allow small companies like Skype to sell to Microsoft then there wouldn't be a Teams to bully Salesforce.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you explain why you think any "startup" "needs an exit"? Why should we accept businesses that cannot persist on their own? This comment caught me off guard with how blatantly VC-sycophantic it is.
It’s very hard for companies to go public these days. There isn’t a willingness for institutions or people to invest in companies that haven’t made it yet. Think about how small companies like Microsoft or Google or Amazon were when they went public. Then think about giant private companies like Stripe or Figma. Now you have to be much larger and more mature, which takes a long time. For employees it means waiting 15…
It seems like companies that are getting similar levels of hype to what Netscape and Google did could go public, but don’t want to, or not yet, anyway. I find it hard to believe that Anthropic or Stripe wouldn’t have successful IPO’s.
What happened to antitrust? We were making great progress and then a few months ago this admin totally flipped?
What happened to antitrust is you guys had an antitrust system that was going way too far (think breaking up regional gas stations too far) and then nixon appointed Rehnquist to the supreme court in 1972, then Reagan appointed him chief justice in 1986. Rehnquist made decent arguments for reforming that that were then taken too far over his tenure (and continuing to this day) and now we have multinational oligopolies…
Regan really is the beginning of all of this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What happened to antitrust is you guys had an antitrust system that was going way too far (think breaking up regional gas stations too far) and then nixon appointed Rehnquist to the supreme court in 1972, then Reagan appointed him chief justice in 1986. Rehnquist made decent arguments for reforming that that were then taken too far over his tenure (and continuing to this day) and now we have multinational oligopolies…
I meant more recently. Lina Khan was making progress and even Tr*mp seemed to be taking a harder line on the tech companies in particular.
Trump was just shaking them down. He was never going to actually fight money.
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This is absurd and easily and trivially disputed. Having a nationwide network absolutely lets you compete with networks that are more regional "If you want to use our western routes you have to use us in the east too." > larger network would make things more efficient for shippers LOL > goods can travel coast to coast without changing trains They already can.
Disputed does not mean disproven. There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps we can discuss pros and cons without acting like asses?
No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout.
More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disputed does not mean disproven. There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good, and reasonable people who think it would be bad, and perhaps we can discuss pros and cons without acting like asses?
> There are reasonable people who think this merge would be good No there aren't, unless you interpret "good" as "good for extracting monopoly prices from the people". The US economy is overly monopolized as it is even without this buyout. More importantly, no reasonable person would skip the $85 Billion (with B) price tag which is a definite proof of my words above.
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Seems to be ~20x the value of the BNSF merger(~10x accounting for inflation). So yeah its pretty outlandish?
OK, but why does that make it "outlandish", as opposed to just "really big"? It's smaller than Pfizer buying Warner-Lambert in 1999. It's smaller (at least inflation adjusted) than Exxon-Mobil or Citicorp-Travelers. It's a lot smaller than AOL-Time Warner in 2000. It's smaller than Dow-duPont in 2015. Why is it outlandish? Because it involves railroads?