That's absolutely not the same thing. Shorting a company will bet specifically against that company, in a way that both: 1. Gives you monetary gain if that sp

That's absolutely not the same thing. Shorting a company will bet specifically against that company, in a way that both: 1. Gives you monetary gain if that specific company/stock decreases in value. 2. Puts pressure on the stock to be lower value. Thus it acts as a correcting mechanism to the market, since just by the fact that a lot of people who have an incentive to make a correct bet on a stock declining, upon placing that bet, help correct the price downwards. Funding a competitor doesn't act anything like that, and specifically probably doesn't give you a great monetary reward, since most startups fail (thus most competitors will fail).