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Incumbents like Adobe , Meta or Google were allowed to reach their size by letting them kill or buy the competition every time something else was rising. As lo

Incumbents like Adobe , Meta or Google were allowed to reach their size by letting them kill or buy the competition every time something else was rising. As long as regulators won't do anything about that, the next startup challenging an incumbent is just poised to be bought("congratulation on your exit!") and killed. Figma is the latest example of this.

sangnoir 4y ago
The 7-to-10-digit exits by incumbents is what funds the entire[1] startup industry: compare number of startup acquisitions vs IPOs in the last 10 years. If the FTC clamps down on acquisitions, there's going to be correction in valuations, and some statups will get killed by VCs who view modest successes as not worth their time. 1. Only being slightly hyperbolic
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  I share your view on this, but also think the main reasons startup take the exits are the VCs. A founder of a VC backed startup will need extraordinary arguments to not sell to an incumbent for a high enough price. So the whole startup game becomes a petri dish for incumbents to see the natural selection of ideas and pick up the viable ones without paying for the failed experiments, and the VCs footing the bill as long as their balance sheet works out in the end.
kajecounterhack 4y ago
Figma's not a great example of "buying to kill" though -- I'd guess that Adobe would sooner deprioritize their existing products that compete with Figma and redirect their effort. And I don't see much wrong with FB buying Instagram or Adobe buying Figma or Google buying YouTube because these services actually got better to the consumer's benefit (and I guess to a limited extent the enriched early employees perpetuate the startup ecosystem). In the case of Google & YouTube, I wonder if YouTube would even be able to turn a profit as an independent company (maybe today they could, but for most of their life I suspect they were unable generate any profit). I love having YouTube and would have been sad if they had to close their doors because nobody had deep enough pockets to nurture it into profitability. Cruise & GM is another example of a potentially good purchase, since self-driving tech is going to require a lot of patience. To be clear, I don't think monopolies are healthy in general since they perturb natural supply/demand signals, but there's certainly nuance in terms of how some of these deals benefit/hurt the general public based on whether the monopolist entities have vision and appetite for long term investment that would otherwise be tough to swallow.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  Google buying Youtube was the only outcome where Youtube would survive, at least at it was. The same way Napster wouldn't have survived as it was. We're in agreement here, but it's I think a broader discussion on how media companies make money and where we stand as consumer, in particular how we feel about RIAA/MPAA. I still think Google is doing a good job, better than most of us would have predicted, but I personally would have preferred a world where Youtube was viable on its own. Looking at Spofify for instance. > FB buying Instagram Even the regulating agencies that let the deal pass are looking back at it as a wrong decision. I personally can't find any single meaningful aspect where we benefit from FB owning Instagram. I partially fault Instagram for having a shitty business plan aimed at being acquired from the start, and kinda wish they had to make the hard decisions at the end instead of selling the whole audience to the worst company to handle it.
  - kajecounterhack 4y ago
    I guess I shouldn't have lumped that purchase in with the others -- maybe IG should be separate indeed. I thought maybe it was similar to YouTube at the time of acquisition but rethinking it now it probably wasn't.

sangnoir 4y ago

The 7-to-10-digit exits by incumbents is what funds the entire[1] startup industry: compare number of startup acquisitions vs IPOs in the last 10 years. If the FTC clamps down on acquisitions, there's going to be correction in valuations, and some statups will get killed by VCs who view modest successes as not worth their time. 1. Only being slightly hyperbolic

makeitdouble 4y ago
I share your view on this, but also think the main reasons startup take the exits are the VCs. A founder of a VC backed startup will need extraordinary arguments to not sell to an incumbent for a high enough price. So the whole startup game becomes a petri dish for incumbents to see the natural selection of ideas and pick up the viable ones without paying for the failed experiments, and the VCs footing the bill as long as their balance sheet works out in the end.

kajecounterhack 4y ago

Figma's not a great example of "buying to kill" though -- I'd guess that Adobe would sooner deprioritize their existing products that compete with Figma and redirect their effort. And I don't see much wrong with FB buying Instagram or Adobe buying Figma or Google buying YouTube because these services actually got better to the consumer's benefit (and I guess to a limited extent the enriched early employees perpetuate the startup ecosystem). In the case of Google & YouTube, I wonder if YouTube would even be able to turn a profit as an independent company (maybe today they could, but for most of their life I suspect they were unable generate any profit). I love having YouTube and would have been sad if they had to close their doors because nobody had deep enough pockets to nurture it into profitability. Cruise & GM is another example of a potentially good purchase, since self-driving tech is going to require a lot of patience. To be clear, I don't think monopolies are healthy in general since they perturb natural supply/demand signals, but there's certainly nuance in terms of how some of these deals benefit/hurt the general public based on whether the monopolist entities have vision and appetite for long term investment that would otherwise be tough to swallow.

makeitdouble 4y ago
Google buying Youtube was the only outcome where Youtube would survive, at least at it was. The same way Napster wouldn't have survived as it was. We're in agreement here, but it's I think a broader discussion on how media companies make money and where we stand as consumer, in particular how we feel about RIAA/MPAA. I still think Google is doing a good job, better than most of us would have predicted, but I personally would have preferred a world where Youtube was viable on its own. Looking at Spofify for instance. > FB buying Instagram Even the regulating agencies that let the deal pass are looking back at it as a wrong decision. I personally can't find any single meaningful aspect where we benefit from FB owning Instagram. I partially fault Instagram for having a shitty business plan aimed at being acquired from the start, and kinda wish they had to make the hard decisions at the end instead of selling the whole audience to the worst company to handle it.
- kajecounterhack 4y ago
  I guess I shouldn't have lumped that purchase in with the others -- maybe IG should be separate indeed. I thought maybe it was similar to YouTube at the time of acquisition but rethinking it now it probably wasn't.