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What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on. Retirement age comes faster than you might think. Even

What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on. Retirement age comes faster than you might think. Even if you deny an exit strategy, the principals are still going to stop eventually, and the product will still come to an end at that time. Allowing a sale at least provides an opportunity for the product to live on, even if there can be no guarantees about how the next guy decides to treat it. Traditionally, when a product doesn't want to be lost, the customers will pool their resources together and offer a buyout. That seemingly didn't happen, so Adobe probably is the next best thing. Adobe is a public company, so the public still has the ability to shape its future.

joshmanders 4y ago
> What would the alternative be? Donate it to the Earth. https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/ https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/
wbsss4412 4y ago
There are always options besides selling the whole company to a giant competitor, the difference is just that you won’t get as high of a return if there are fewer bidders in the marketplace. A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out. The company has gone public (or will shortly) and is now at the mercy of the public shareholder. Which is specifically the concern here. The worry is that the public shareholders, who aren't necessarily users and are only shareholders out of interest in profit, will see more value in squashing the product than carrying on. The users pooling resources would have been the logical buyer, to keep out of the general public with competing interest's hands, but seemingly they didn't want the company, so...
  - wbsss4412 4y ago
    I suppose I just don’t understand you original point then? > What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on. Going public means you can move on and sell your shares at any time on the open market, they never needed Adobe to buy them out except to get a higher valuation. Your original comment implied that if companies like Adobe weren’t able to buy out smaller competitors, the products would just die, which, obviously isn’t even the case here.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      I guess I don't understand yours. There is no functional difference between offering shares to the public directly or offering shares to the public by proxy through Adobe. Either way the public controls the company and gets to decide the fate of the product. If they see value in continuing it, they'll do so. If there is more value in letting it die, they'll do that instead. The problem with shareholders made up of the general public is that they aren't interested in the product itself. It it goes by the wayside, oh well. They never used it in the first place. This doesn't serve to protect the offering in the manner the customer expects. It might work out, but often it doesn't. Adobe's products themselves are a prime example of what happens when the general public has more say than the users. No user-controlled company would play those shenanigans, but the general public doesn't use Adobe products, so they don't feel the pain. They only see the profit pleasure. This is why, traditionally, customers who want to ensure that a product remains aligned with their expectations pool their resources and enact a buyout before it reaches the hands of outsiders with other ideas. This allows them to put priority on the product itself, not competing concerns like profitability. But there is no evidence that happened here, so they decided it was okay to let it go to the whims of the rest of the world. It's a tradeoff. Such is life.
      - wbsss4412 4y ago
        I’m making my comments in the context of the thread: >we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive when it comes to super-massive companies like Adobe > What do you think happens to VC investments when it’s harder for companies to be acquired? > maybe a culture of creating small companies out of VC capital only to be acquired by megacorps is not the best way forward for society > What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on > A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out The whole point was that anti trust should be stepping in more, and then people were making over the top claims about there being no alternative. The whole point is that it is not up to the public shareholders to sell to whoever they want if the government will block the sale.
anders_p 4y ago
> What would the alternative be? Your imagination can't be this limited? Are you really not able to come up with any other scenario than "bought up by your biggest competitor"? Like...they could go public, or sell to a new owner that isn't already the biggest in the field, etc.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The “public” doesn’t give a rats ass about how good the product is and are very short term focused. The minute the company goes public, you are then at the mercy of “activist investors” not interested in the core product.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > Like...they could go public That's the option that has been chosen. That is not an alternative. The product will soon be in the hands of the public. That's also the worry as the public doesn't care about the product and thus won't put the product's interest in mind. > or sell to a new owner that isn't already the biggest in the field That's not really an alternative either with respect to the discussion about the new owners potentially letting the product languish or die. It is different, but still reaches the same outcome, potentially. You are still risking that the owner doesn't care about the product. As discussed, selling to the customers would mitigate this, as they have reason to care about the product, but we already established that they didn't express interest. We would never want to force someone into owning it. > Your imagination can't be this limited? It is. Hopefully someone with an imagination will come along at some point. I'm quite interested to hear about alternatives.

joshmanders 4y ago

> What would the alternative be? Donate it to the Earth. https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/ https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/

wbsss4412 4y ago

There are always options besides selling the whole company to a giant competitor, the difference is just that you won’t get as high of a return if there are fewer bidders in the marketplace. A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out.

randomdata 4y ago
> A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out. The company has gone public (or will shortly) and is now at the mercy of the public shareholder. Which is specifically the concern here. The worry is that the public shareholders, who aren't necessarily users and are only shareholders out of interest in profit, will see more value in squashing the product than carrying on. The users pooling resources would have been the logical buyer, to keep out of the general public with competing interest's hands, but seemingly they didn't want the company, so...
- wbsss4412 4y ago
  I suppose I just don’t understand you original point then? > What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on. Going public means you can move on and sell your shares at any time on the open market, they never needed Adobe to buy them out except to get a higher valuation. Your original comment implied that if companies like Adobe weren’t able to buy out smaller competitors, the products would just die, which, obviously isn’t even the case here.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    I guess I don't understand yours. There is no functional difference between offering shares to the public directly or offering shares to the public by proxy through Adobe. Either way the public controls the company and gets to decide the fate of the product. If they see value in continuing it, they'll do so. If there is more value in letting it die, they'll do that instead. The problem with shareholders made up of the general public is that they aren't interested in the product itself. It it goes by the wayside, oh well. They never used it in the first place. This doesn't serve to protect the offering in the manner the customer expects. It might work out, but often it doesn't. Adobe's products themselves are a prime example of what happens when the general public has more say than the users. No user-controlled company would play those shenanigans, but the general public doesn't use Adobe products, so they don't feel the pain. They only see the profit pleasure. This is why, traditionally, customers who want to ensure that a product remains aligned with their expectations pool their resources and enact a buyout before it reaches the hands of outsiders with other ideas. This allows them to put priority on the product itself, not competing concerns like profitability. But there is no evidence that happened here, so they decided it was okay to let it go to the whims of the rest of the world. It's a tradeoff. Such is life.
    - wbsss4412 4y ago
      I’m making my comments in the context of the thread: >we need new antitrust laws that are a bit more proactive when it comes to super-massive companies like Adobe > What do you think happens to VC investments when it’s harder for companies to be acquired? > maybe a culture of creating small companies out of VC capital only to be acquired by megacorps is not the best way forward for society > What would the alternative be? There will always come a day when founders and investors want to move on > A company like figma could have always just gone public if the founders/investors just wanted to get out The whole point was that anti trust should be stepping in more, and then people were making over the top claims about there being no alternative. The whole point is that it is not up to the public shareholders to sell to whoever they want if the government will block the sale.

anders_p 4y ago

> What would the alternative be? Your imagination can't be this limited? Are you really not able to come up with any other scenario than "bought up by your biggest competitor"? Like...they could go public, or sell to a new owner that isn't already the biggest in the field, etc.

scarface74 4y ago
The “public” doesn’t give a rats ass about how good the product is and are very short term focused. The minute the company goes public, you are then at the mercy of “activist investors” not interested in the core product.
randomdata 4y ago
> Like...they could go public That's the option that has been chosen. That is not an alternative. The product will soon be in the hands of the public. That's also the worry as the public doesn't care about the product and thus won't put the product's interest in mind. > or sell to a new owner that isn't already the biggest in the field That's not really an alternative either with respect to the discussion about the new owners potentially letting the product languish or die. It is different, but still reaches the same outcome, potentially. You are still risking that the owner doesn't care about the product. As discussed, selling to the customers would mitigate this, as they have reason to care about the product, but we already established that they didn't express interest. We would never want to force someone into owning it. > Your imagination can't be this limited? It is. Hopefully someone with an imagination will come along at some point. I'm quite interested to hear about alternatives.