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>I know it's fun to rip on Adobe, but it's worth putting this in context. It's fair that you made this assumption given the rest of my comment but when I said

by dimmke 4y ago

>I know it's fun to rip on Adobe, but it's worth putting this in context. It's fair that you made this assumption given the rest of my comment but when I said "awful" I meant as a user/customer, not necessarily from a business/revenue perspective. You can juice a company and have it be more profitable even if the changes are unpopular with your customers, especially if you enjoy an almost monopoly status in terms of your software being what is used and taught in schools. >As a handy rule of thumb, I like to assume that any long-term CEO of a profitable multi-billion dollar enterprise probably isn't a moron. Fair, but he's used to running the company in a very "fuck the customer" kind of way. If Microsoft didn't have a new and not hated CEO, opened up private free repos on Github and basically not touched it in any other meaningful way I think it would have galvanized a big change in that space. I just don't think Adobe is going to avoid pulling some kind of "fuck you" move that triggers an exodus the way Microsoft did. This is a much bigger acquisition for them than Github was with Microsoft. I also don't think the transition to SASS/Subscription was some brilliant business insight, rather par for the course with the rest of the industry changing. >Considering the price they paid, I bet Adobe understands this is an existential issue for them. It's funny to me that you make this point in the same comment where you talk about how great Adobe's business is. If they're crushing it so hard, why are they in a position where they have to spend 20 billion dollars to buy a company that is an existential threat to them? If I was a shareholder, I'd want an explanation for how they ended up in this situation and what changes can be made to prevent it from happening again. But Adobe is culturally incapable of making good software, and it's clear they don't have product people in charge anywhere. At best, they don't do anything to Figma and it stagnates. At worst, significant price increases, reduced performance, worse UI is introduced, etc...

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
Fair points all around. And I do apologize for leaping to such an unfavorable interpretation of your comment. I think you're right their monopoly position has spoiled them, and it's led them to treat their customers rather poorly. > I also don't think the transition to SASS/Subscription was some brilliant business insight, rather par for the course with the rest of the industry changing. The impressive part is not the insight; it's the fact he was able to pivot a multi-billion dollar behemoth through a change like this. There's lots of ossified incentive structures and politics in a giant company like this, and it does demonstrate real leadership that he was able to pull it off successfully. It is admittedly more of a feat of execution than of innovation. > It's funny to me that you make this point in the same comment where you talk about how great Adobe's business is. If they're crushing it so hard, why are they in a position where they have to spend 20 billion dollars to buy a company that is an existential threat to them? Good question. And my answer is a bit of a cop-out, but I'd say it's basically the dictionary definition of disruption. Once Adobe moved their business models to SaaS, they were puttering along and making little attempts at web-based software ("sustaining innovation"). Figma came along and grew from a prototyping tool to capture more and more of the design workflow; their disruptive innovation was baking collaboration in from the start. The one insight as to "how to grow from this failure" (if you will) might come from the parallel to Instagram. After the acquisition, the Instagram product leaders were given more scope, resources, and power. Thanks to that, FB/Insta were able to successfully head off the threat from Snapchat by introducing Instagram stories. [1] > At best, they don't do anything to Figma and it stagnates. At worst, significant price increases, reduced performance, worse UI is introduced, etc... IMHO it would be (relatively) straightforward to leave the product team alone to continue iterating, while supercharging their GTM efforts by plugging Figma into Adobe's existing customer base. To the Instagram example above, it would be very interesting if Figma's product brilliance was allowed to spread to the rest of Adobe's portfolio. As with most BigCo acquisitions, though, that's vanishingly unlikely. FB is IMHO a relatively unique counterexample in this respect. It's more likely people will drift off after their golden handcuffs disappear. They'll create the next generation of design startups, and the circle of life will continue. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/silicon-copy/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/silicon-copy/

by dimmke 4y ago

q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago

Fair points all around. And I do apologize for leaping to such an unfavorable interpretation of your comment. I think you're right their monopoly position has spoiled them, and it's led them to treat their customers rather poorly. > I also don't think the transition to SASS/Subscription was some brilliant business insight, rather par for the course with the rest of the industry changing. The impressive part is not the insight; it's the fact he was able to pivot a multi-billion dollar behemoth through a change like this. There's lots of ossified incentive structures and politics in a giant company like this, and it does demonstrate real leadership that he was able to pull it off successfully. It is admittedly more of a feat of execution than of innovation. > It's funny to me that you make this point in the same comment where you talk about how great Adobe's business is. If they're crushing it so hard, why are they in a position where they have to spend 20 billion dollars to buy a company that is an existential threat to them? Good question. And my answer is a bit of a cop-out, but I'd say it's basically the dictionary definition of disruption. Once Adobe moved their business models to SaaS, they were puttering along and making little attempts at web-based software ("sustaining innovation"). Figma came along and grew from a prototyping tool to capture more and more of the design workflow; their disruptive innovation was baking collaboration in from the start. The one insight as to "how to grow from this failure" (if you will) might come from the parallel to Instagram. After the acquisition, the Instagram product leaders were given more scope, resources, and power. Thanks to that, FB/Insta were able to successfully head off the threat from Snapchat by introducing Instagram stories. [1] > At best, they don't do anything to Figma and it stagnates. At worst, significant price increases, reduced performance, worse UI is introduced, etc... IMHO it would be (relatively) straightforward to leave the product team alone to continue iterating, while supercharging their GTM efforts by plugging Figma into Adobe's existing customer base. To the Instagram example above, it would be very interesting if Figma's product brilliance was allowed to spread to the rest of Adobe's portfolio. As with most BigCo acquisitions, though, that's vanishingly unlikely. FB is IMHO a relatively unique counterexample in this respect. It's more likely people will drift off after their golden handcuffs disappear. They'll create the next generation of design startups, and the circle of life will continue. [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/silicon-copy/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/02/silicon-copy/