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> As an entrepreneur he simply did his job: he built an extremely valuable company and took the best deal he could probably get for it. Sorry, but: no. There

by biztos 4y ago

> As an entrepreneur he simply did his job: he built an extremely valuable company and took the best deal he could probably get for it. Sorry, but: no. There are many ways to work in the world, and certainly one way is to be an amoral mercenary in search of profit. But if you think "the job" of the entrepreneur is simply to have a good exit, well the world would be gravely impoverished if entrepreneurs in general shared your view. The fact that many of the acquiring companies in these stores are still largely controlled by their founders is telling.

krn 4y ago
> But if you think "the job" of the entrepreneur is simply to have a good exit, well the world would be gravely impoverished if entrepreneurs in general shared your view. The job of an entrepreneur is to calculate everything and to make the right decision in every situation. There could be many reasons behind the decision to sell to Adobe for $20B: – Maybe reaching the $20B market cap after an IPO would have taken a very long time for Figma on its own; – Maybe were was an extremely high risk of Adobe acquiring another competitor or building a competitive product in-house; – Maybe the investors wanted the have an exit now, 10 years after the company's creation; – Maybe the founders had other ideas they wanted to work after their vesting with Adobe expires. > The fact that many of the acquiring companies in these stores are still largely controlled by their founders is telling. For some companies the right exit is IPO, for others – acquisitions. But if they took any money from investors, they must have an exit.
- biztos 4y ago
  You're right, my comment was overblown (night-posting) and I wasn't even reacting to the Figma acquisition but rather to the general implication that entrepreneurs should want money as opposed to wanting to create a good thing (like Figma!) in the world. In the best case they want both. I wish both Figma and Adobe well, and I hope they do cool stuff together.

by biztos 4y ago

krn 4y ago

> But if you think "the job" of the entrepreneur is simply to have a good exit, well the world would be gravely impoverished if entrepreneurs in general shared your view. The job of an entrepreneur is to calculate everything and to make the right decision in every situation. There could be many reasons behind the decision to sell to Adobe for $20B: – Maybe reaching the $20B market cap after an IPO would have taken a very long time for Figma on its own; – Maybe were was an extremely high risk of Adobe acquiring another competitor or building a competitive product in-house; – Maybe the investors wanted the have an exit now, 10 years after the company's creation; – Maybe the founders had other ideas they wanted to work after their vesting with Adobe expires. > The fact that many of the acquiring companies in these stores are still largely controlled by their founders is telling. For some companies the right exit is IPO, for others – acquisitions. But if they took any money from investors, they must have an exit.

biztos 4y ago
You're right, my comment was overblown (night-posting) and I wasn't even reacting to the Figma acquisition but rather to the general implication that entrepreneurs should want money as opposed to wanting to create a good thing (like Figma!) in the world. In the best case they want both. I wish both Figma and Adobe well, and I hope they do cool stuff together.