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Apple buys a company every three to four weeks
- paulryanrogers 6y agoI'm beginning to think maintaining competitive markets requires broader criteria. Like any of super-majority share of: market volume, revenue within a market, influence over market, consumer harm, significant reduction in number of competitors.
- SllX 6y agoWhy?
- conception 6y agoBecause right now price is about the only criteria really considered today. You can stifle innovation and competition as long as the prices stay low.
- sircastor 6y agoIt seems to me that Apple buys companies because they want to research and build a technology into their products, rather than eliminate competitors. It seems to me they’re more interested in the talent than the market. That kind of behavior I attribute to Facebook.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoAnd yet I still couldn't use the fingerprint reader in one of my laptops because Apple bought the supplier. Driver updates stopped soon thereafter, sadly right around the time of a major Windows release and my reader was SOL.
- root_axis 6y agoHuh? This seems totally backwards to me. Stripping down an acquisition to incorporate it into the acquiring company is the ultimate competitor crushing strategy; buy up all the best technology and sell it exclusively through your locked-down walled garden. Apple products integrate with Apple products and nothing else by design. Granted, the Facebook product is an absolute cancer on society, but Facebook's acquisitions have continued to thrive while still maintaining their original product visions e.g. whatsapp, instagram, oculus. Frankly, I think you're viewing things fan-colored glasses.
- spideymans 6y ago>Huh? This seems totally backwards to me. Stripping down an acquisition to incorporate it into the acquiring company is the ultimate competitor crushing strategy; It's not as if Apple lacks competition capable of doing the exact same.
- root_axis 6y agoI never stated otherwise.
- SllX 6y agoMost small businesses fail. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to take the money and the W2 salaries; each company was in a position to assess their own situations and make their own choice about whether to be acquired or try to stay independent and succeed or fail on their own. Other companies have said “no” to Apple in the past, Dropbox most famously.
- root_axis 6y agoI agree with your comment. None of it contradicts anything I wrote.
- SllX 6y agoUpon reflection after a second read through, you’re right: we agree more than we disagree, and any disagreement I have on my end amounts to mere nitpicking when I put it in words in a box. At least in this thread. Cheers, mate!
- sircastor 6y agoPerhaps so, but that encourages innovation on competing features from other parties. Consider Prime Sense, whose technology started out with the Kinect and ended up as the FaceID sensor in iOS. Microsoft still had a Kinect after the acquisition, and a host of other time-of-flight devices have shown up in the market (Intels RealSense camera, Leap motion), and other companies have pursued TOF sensors in phones using alternative technologies. Just because one company disappears doesn’t mean the concepts disappear along with it. And if they did entirely disappear when the company is acquired, that (to me) is indicative of how well the technology was performing in the marketplace to begin with.
- thayne 6y agoRegardless of the reason, the effect is still the same. Technology that could have been more broadly used is limited to Apple's ecosystem. Innovations might not happen, or happen later, because the company that would have made them is acquired and the talent is redirected to work on Apple products. Products that could have competed with Apple's products end up being part of Apple's products instead.
- SllX 6y agoAre you lacking in competition in any market that Apple (per the original article) competes in?
- jacobolus 6y ago> price [for consumers] is about the only criteria really considered today. Blame the past 50 years of GOP-dominated Supreme Court jurisprudence, which has steadily eroded antitrust enforcement. Vote for the Democratic party in Senate and Presidential races, and something might happen to fix this in about 30–40 years when the Court turns over enough to give Democrat-appointed Justices a majority.
- yyyk 6y agoThe weakening of antitrust enforcement wouldn't have happened without the support of liberal economists like Thurow and Galbraith, and D judges have until very recently voted the same way as R judges. Fortunately, changing the antitrust criteria 'merely' requires convincing Congress, which is doable within a saner timeframe.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago> Because right now price is about the only criteria really considered today. You can stifle innovation and competition as long as the prices stay low. In the US, maybe. Other jurisdictions take different views.
- nabla9 6y agoThat's how the proper antitrust regulation worked in the US before Borkism took over in the Reagan era.
- mooreds 6y agoYou should read "Goliath" by Matt Stoller. In it he reviews the history of monopoly and how the US definition of it changed from the 1930s to the 1980s. Interesting historical read and it reinforced to me that both monopolies and competitive markets are societal constructs, not facts of nature. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/9781501182891 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Goliath/Matt-Stoller/...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- elefanten 6y agoIt's worth noting that he is a highly opinionated writer on the subject. Seemingly, his raison d'etre is to further antitrust -- though, in his case, it seems to be a vague, expansive and shifting notion. He effectively just seems to be against any "big" business.
- mooreds 6y agoHe definitely has opinions. I found the history useful, but he has an viewpoint that he argues for. Happy to hear recommendations for contrasting viewpoints if you care to share.
- dr_kiszonka 6y agoI like this list. I'd add collection of behavioral data of a significant proportion of the population. ("Behavioral data" and "significant proportion" would require good definitions; I am not a policy maker, so I am leaving it to those sharper than me.)
- purpmint008 6y agoApple has the majority of profits in the smartphone industry in the US, and even globally. To me, that warrants a major anti-trust investigation into: the App Store and pre-included apps like iMessage being fused into the SMS system on their devices! Bring them down to size.
- robmusial 6y agoIs that a lot? How many does a similarly positioned company buy, say Alphabet, Dell, or Cisco? Seems like every time I find a neat niche networking or security product I like, Cisco or someone ends up buying it. Context would’ve been helpful in this article.
- 0_____0 6y agoAlphabet is faster. As Cory Doctorow mentioned in one of his talks, they buy companies more often than most people go to the grocery store.
- texasbigdata 6y agoSo...26 a year? That's in the same range.
- wlll 6y agoEveryone I know goes once a week. once every two weeks and you'd start to run out of fresh produce in week 2.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- presentation 6y agoI live in Japan and go around twice a week, some people go near everyday here. Small homes, small fridges and portions, convenient walkable neighborhoods, desire to eat fresh.
- stephencanon 6y agoI live in the US and go three times a week. We could go less often without any real inconvenience, but the store is right across the street from my daughter's day care, so it's an easy stop in our daily errands, and that way we don't need to worry about planning much in advance (and we always have fresh bread, fruit and veg, which is nice).
- btown 6y agoVia the linked dupe threads, here's a list of their known acquisitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by_Apple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...
- curiousllama 6y ago> Mr Cook told the shareholders meeting that the acquisitions are mostly aimed at acquiring technology and talent What’s the median acquisition size? Heck, what’s the 75th percentile? I’d bet most of these acquisitions are of lifestyle businesses with few/no paths to scale. Probably just aimed at the tech teams or execs. Nothing much to see here
- ketamine__ 6y agoIt's mostly about talent but nobody wants to embarrass the entrepreneurs?
- zepto 6y agoWhy is it embarrassing? They obviously did well enough to be worth acquiring.
- umanwizard 6y agoAn acqui-hire is typically considered a failure for VC-backed startups. (Not that one should necessarily be embarrassed for “failing” in this way, but that’s just the reality).
- ryandrake 6y agoI could think of worse things than getting acqui-hired by a FAANG and made a Director or something in the company. Not sure that's much of a failure honestly!
- pseudalopex 6y agoSuccess to you. Failure to the investors.
- Sebb767 6y agoIt's certainly better than going insolvent, but it also implies that you company has failed to reach the usual hockey-stick growth targets and that your IP is "worthless" enough to be bought as overhead for hiring someone. So, while not a total failure, it's really not a compliment.
- hi5eyes 6y agodupe https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26247821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26248716 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26248716
- qbasic_forever 6y agoSo ~15 companies a year? That doesn't sound outrageous for a company with billions and billions of dollars in the bank, and billions more coming in every quarter. edit: If anything there's probably immense pressure on Cook to buy buy buy more stuff. I don't think anyone inside Apple wants to have a repeat of stuff like old Apple maps or other products that just languished and died internally while external companies innovated. Easier to just spray the money & acquisition cannon around indiscriminately.
- jariel 6y agoThe issue is not the money - it's the ability to integrate. M&A and cooltech is by far the easiest part. Making use of the tech, the talent, operational integration, re-writes vs. integration, product alignment, etc. it's very hard on every level. What do you do with the VP of a 50 person company, now they are managers in a little team, the software might be discarded, or just a few ideas used from it etc. etc..
- gibolt 6y agoYou only need 1 to pay off for it to be worth it. The rest can be deprecated and team reallocated. Not saying it is right, but makes sense for a business of that scale.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoMaybe... Google seems to be taking that strategy but it feels like it leads to some kind of flaw in their thinking around product support.
- Judgmentality 6y agoHow long has it been since Google had a notable successful acquisition? I'm asking because I can't think of anything recent.
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- fuzzfactor 6y ago>Apple buys a company every three to four weeks I would too.
- lwigo 6y agoIn all stock deals, how much does that end up being? Like 1 share Apple per 1000 stock options of the startup?
- fx18011 6y agoI misread like Apple buys a company every three to four weeks.
- jaimex2 6y agoAnd this is why we have a centralised Internet.
- root_axis 6y agoThe HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust law, but when it comes to Apple we're treated to a litany of "so what?". Honestly, I don't mind Apple's acquisitions (though I do wish I was living in a world where I could buy an M1 the same way I can buy an i7), but I just felt compelled to drop this little nugget of off-topic meta-commentary. Carry on.
- ralfd 6y agoBecause of this: > Measured by value, Apple’s acquisitions are actually far more restrained than those of many of its tech rivals. Microsoft paid $26bn for LinkedIn, Amazon paid $13.7bn for Whole Foods and Facebook paid $19bn for WhatsApp. Apple’s ten largest purchases put together would still be worth far less than any of those deals. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if ALL of Apples acquisitions were less than $13 bn.
- root_axis 6y agoI don't see why the price Apple paid matters at all. What Apple does with the acquisitions I think is far more relevant. LinkedIn, Whole Foods, and WhatsApp have continued to thrive after acquisition, all of Apple's acquisitions are gutted and scavenged for parts to incorporate into their locked-down walled garden. Don't get me wrong, it's a great business strategy and the reason that Apple products are typically superior to the competition, but it's far more hostile and anti-competitive compared to the cited examples.
- PierceJoy 6y agoIs this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.
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- purpmint008 6y agoApple is the biggest monopoly in the US right now. Hands down. They get to get away with everything! Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all get hammered on the daily in the US and in the EU. But, Apple is a golden child that can do no wrong. Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?! The app should be broke up into 2. You should be given options on what messaging app you want to install. Their practices are anti-competitive. 15-30% cut via the App Store for Apple?! Is this a joke?!
- purpmint008 6y agoKeep downvoting me, fanboys! Long live the resistance!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dang 6y agoWould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? We're trying for something different here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- purpmint008 6y agoHow about the Apple Music store being embedded into the default Music App? Blatantly anti-competitive against Spotify.
- dang 6y agoSure, that would make a good point as part of a relevant comment somewhere.
- warkdarrior 6y ago> Do you people not realize that they've created a peer-pressure device in the form of the iPhone by packaging SMS and iMessage into 1 app called "Messages"? How is that even legal?! https://www.gihosoft.com/iphone-tips/best-messaging-apps-ios.html https://www.gihosoft.com/iphone-tips/best-messaging-apps-ios...
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoI think one one interesting thing is that megacorps that seem to integrate big acquisitions (Amazon -> Whole Foods, Microsoft -> Github & LinkedIn, Facebook -> WhatsApp), all seem to be megacorps that don’t mind doing shit in a messy, scrappy way. Whereas companies with a strong fixation on design & aesthetic seem to have a harder time. To fit into Apple, everything must look and feel like Apple. There could never be a new “Whole Foods” tab where things look and feel like Whole Foods. So Apple melts it down and recasts what it can into Apple - a lot like the Borg.
- darkstar_16 6y agoAll big tech companies are the same. Cisco, for example, I think buys one every 6 weeks or so.
- shmerl 6y agoThis is pretty crazy. And it's pretty bad too.
- max_ 6y agoHow can one track these acquisitions? Does crunch base offer such a feature?