2 ms·

Anything that gets close gets bought or killed by non-european giants. Tencent buys basically all game companies, microsoft buys basically all communication co

by dijit 2y ago

Anything that gets close gets bought or killed by non-european giants. Tencent buys basically all game companies, microsoft buys basically all communication companies (skype, nokia come to mind), google buys basically everything. Even ARM is owned by Softbank after starting out in the UK. The Automotive industry and ASML are just about the only things resistant to this because they're so large already; Automotive acts a lot like big tech. (a clear similarity I saw after being in BMW R&D and Googles Zurich and SF campuses)

carlosjobim 2y ago
They can't buy anything unless Europeans are willing to sell.
- dijit 2y ago
  Vivendi and Tencent attempting to buy Ubisoft via shares might be one thing in living memory that disagrees. If you are publicly traded there is little you can do to prevent people buying shares - though you are right that people sell privately held companies a little too often. Ubisoft in particular created many poison pills to prevent companies getting too dug in, however that didn’t prevent anything except a total buyout. Their board is stacked with Microsoft and Tencent which causes weird, extremely harmful, decision making in the org.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    > If you are publicly traded there is little you can do to prevent people buying shares Nobody can force you to sell your shares. Nobody can force you to make your company public. It's all voluntary. You can't have your cake and eat it. Want to get that juicy foreign investor money then cry that the foreigners are taking over?
    - dijit 2y ago
      I have a low tolerance for absurdly stupid comments. Once you sell a share you don't get to control who it is sold to afterwards, you could give shares to people as stock-options, and they are (rightly) going to sell their shares regardless who the buyer is, only based on the price. So. Seriously, shut the fuck up, you're suggesting that the only answer is isolationism. Identification of an issue (people buying up European talent before it gets large enough to be competitive) is not an invitation for absurd and deficiently reasoned victim blaming.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        Your anger comes from your frustration, your frustration comes from realizing that you're wrong. If you want to keep control of a company - or anything - within certain hands, then you can't sell that thing to others. As evident by millions of companies never having their shares publicly listed or sold on any market. If you sell, you have to accept that you don't have any control of who owns in the future. You can't have your cake and eat it. Not even Europeans can do that. "People buying up European talent" - they can only buy if Europeans are willing to sell. Such victims... This reminds me of people complaining about foreign investors buying up real estate. But of course, no blame is to be put on the greedy sellers who slurped up that juicy foreign money.
- aniviacat 2y ago
  What's your intended message? Yes, people sell things voluntarily. (In particular, small companies being bought and killed by monopolies is usually very benefitial to the small companies' owners, even if it's bad for the economy as a whole.) That does not contradict the parent comments.
  - pests 2y ago
    The parents comments are about foreign companies owning your company. If you do not want that, do not voluntarily sell your company. I like my cat. I don't want others owning my cat. I probably shouldn't sell my cat then right? I can't take the money now and complain later the neighbor owns my cat.
roenxi 2y ago
There is an issue with that perspective though. The Europeans sell out. Ok. Maybe they are bad at valuation and don't realise that their companies are worth more than they are being paid for. Or maybe an EU company can't capture as much value as a US/Chinese company. And those are really the only two options - either the decision is rational or irrational. If it is an irrational decision then there isn't much to talk about. But it is probably the second case - selling out to someone on a different continent generates value. And there is a good chance that is because it helps avoid EU regulators. For example, you mentioned Nokia. Nokia was blown out of the market by superior Chinese manufacturing and US design [0]. It wasn't a close battle, the EU contender was crushed. Apple's motivation for entering the market was that among other things that companies like Nokia were so bad at making phones that Apple reckoned it could break in to a new vertical. That is a very EU-led-industry problem to have. The reason they sold out was because the EU turned out to be incapable of incubating a modern, successful phone manufacturer in the 21st century even with an incredible lead and Nokia was being outmanoeuvred everywhere. [0] Both looked like regulatory issues to me, we've seen how the EU responds to things like micromanaging the iPhone charging port.
- awesomeMilou 2y ago
  > Nokia was blown out of the market by superior Chinese manufacturing and US design [0]. No, Nokia was blown out of the market via the exclusive deal with Microsoft, which in turn made the dumbest management decisions ever. Nokia bled under the horrible management of Steve Ballmer and their own ignorance with regards to Android. They also proved later on that you don't need any expertise to produce decent Android phones, as HMD global used their name as a brand and has been thriving. To add to this: It's not that hard to develop a mobile operating system that's on par or better than Android, despite what Google might want you to think.
  - pragmaticd 2y ago
    Exactly. Part of Nokia still lives on in Jolla and they have a modest team.
    - 2y ago
ahartmetz 2y ago
SAP, too.

by dijit 2y ago

carlosjobim 2y ago

They can't buy anything unless Europeans are willing to sell.

dijit 2y ago
Vivendi and Tencent attempting to buy Ubisoft via shares might be one thing in living memory that disagrees. If you are publicly traded there is little you can do to prevent people buying shares - though you are right that people sell privately held companies a little too often. Ubisoft in particular created many poison pills to prevent companies getting too dug in, however that didn’t prevent anything except a total buyout. Their board is stacked with Microsoft and Tencent which causes weird, extremely harmful, decision making in the org.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  > If you are publicly traded there is little you can do to prevent people buying shares Nobody can force you to sell your shares. Nobody can force you to make your company public. It's all voluntary. You can't have your cake and eat it. Want to get that juicy foreign investor money then cry that the foreigners are taking over?
  - dijit 2y ago
    I have a low tolerance for absurdly stupid comments. Once you sell a share you don't get to control who it is sold to afterwards, you could give shares to people as stock-options, and they are (rightly) going to sell their shares regardless who the buyer is, only based on the price. So. Seriously, shut the fuck up, you're suggesting that the only answer is isolationism. Identification of an issue (people buying up European talent before it gets large enough to be competitive) is not an invitation for absurd and deficiently reasoned victim blaming.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      Your anger comes from your frustration, your frustration comes from realizing that you're wrong. If you want to keep control of a company - or anything - within certain hands, then you can't sell that thing to others. As evident by millions of companies never having their shares publicly listed or sold on any market. If you sell, you have to accept that you don't have any control of who owns in the future. You can't have your cake and eat it. Not even Europeans can do that. "People buying up European talent" - they can only buy if Europeans are willing to sell. Such victims... This reminds me of people complaining about foreign investors buying up real estate. But of course, no blame is to be put on the greedy sellers who slurped up that juicy foreign money.
aniviacat 2y ago
What's your intended message? Yes, people sell things voluntarily. (In particular, small companies being bought and killed by monopolies is usually very benefitial to the small companies' owners, even if it's bad for the economy as a whole.) That does not contradict the parent comments.
- pests 2y ago
  The parents comments are about foreign companies owning your company. If you do not want that, do not voluntarily sell your company. I like my cat. I don't want others owning my cat. I probably shouldn't sell my cat then right? I can't take the money now and complain later the neighbor owns my cat.

roenxi 2y ago

There is an issue with that perspective though. The Europeans sell out. Ok. Maybe they are bad at valuation and don't realise that their companies are worth more than they are being paid for. Or maybe an EU company can't capture as much value as a US/Chinese company. And those are really the only two options - either the decision is rational or irrational. If it is an irrational decision then there isn't much to talk about. But it is probably the second case - selling out to someone on a different continent generates value. And there is a good chance that is because it helps avoid EU regulators. For example, you mentioned Nokia. Nokia was blown out of the market by superior Chinese manufacturing and US design [0]. It wasn't a close battle, the EU contender was crushed. Apple's motivation for entering the market was that among other things that companies like Nokia were so bad at making phones that Apple reckoned it could break in to a new vertical. That is a very EU-led-industry problem to have. The reason they sold out was because the EU turned out to be incapable of incubating a modern, successful phone manufacturer in the 21st century even with an incredible lead and Nokia was being outmanoeuvred everywhere. [0] Both looked like regulatory issues to me, we've seen how the EU responds to things like micromanaging the iPhone charging port.

awesomeMilou 2y ago
> Nokia was blown out of the market by superior Chinese manufacturing and US design [0]. No, Nokia was blown out of the market via the exclusive deal with Microsoft, which in turn made the dumbest management decisions ever. Nokia bled under the horrible management of Steve Ballmer and their own ignorance with regards to Android. They also proved later on that you don't need any expertise to produce decent Android phones, as HMD global used their name as a brand and has been thriving. To add to this: It's not that hard to develop a mobile operating system that's on par or better than Android, despite what Google might want you to think.
- pragmaticd 2y ago
  Exactly. Part of Nokia still lives on in Jolla and they have a modest team.
  - 2y ago

ahartmetz 2y ago

SAP, too.