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There’s been too much consolidation bordering on monopolies. Whenever you hear about two companies merging and laying off thousands of staff, maybe it’s time to

There’s been too much consolidation bordering on monopolies. Whenever you hear about two companies merging and laying off thousands of staff, maybe it’s time to stop letting that happen.

Rinzler89 2y ago
This. Whenever I see mergers between already large companies in the tech sector, I'm baffled the regulators give the green light.
- dehrmann 2y ago
  Do you have any recent examples of this? I'm having hard time coming up with recent large mergers and acquisitions in tech. The best I've got is Broadcom buying VMware, but VMware is mid-sized and in decline.
  - linotype 2y ago
    The hundreds of acquisitions of startups made every year by Apple, Google and Microsoft for example.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    NXP and Freescale. How is VMware mid sized? By what standards?
  - goldfishgold 2y ago
    Activision and Microsoft. Square and Afterpay. Salesforce and Slack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mergers_and_acquisitions#2020s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mergers_and_ac... VMware was also an enormous deal. $61b.
    - linotype 2y ago
      Slack was crazy. Aside from huddles I can’t think of a single feature I’ve used that they’ve added since their acquisition by Salesforce. Like what are they doing with so many people? (I know that’s a trope, but seriously…)
reaperducer 2y ago
Whenever you hear about two companies merging and laying off thousands of staff, maybe it’s time to stop letting that happen. Meanwhile, the HN zeitgeist complains about Tesla not being allowed to sell cars directly to consumer. Having lots of independent dealers is a job creation feature, not a bug. Dozens of industries in America have the same regulation. Not everything should be maximally efficient, especially if it reduces competition.
layer8 2y ago
The mergers often also end up making the respective products worse, and reducing competition.

There’s been too much consolidation bordering on monopolies. Whenever you hear about two companies merging and laying off thousands of staff, maybe it’s time to stop letting that happen.

Rinzler89 2y ago

This. Whenever I see mergers between already large companies in the tech sector, I'm baffled the regulators give the green light.

dehrmann 2y ago
Do you have any recent examples of this? I'm having hard time coming up with recent large mergers and acquisitions in tech. The best I've got is Broadcom buying VMware, but VMware is mid-sized and in decline.
- linotype 2y ago
  The hundreds of acquisitions of startups made every year by Apple, Google and Microsoft for example.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  NXP and Freescale. How is VMware mid sized? By what standards?
- goldfishgold 2y ago
  Activision and Microsoft. Square and Afterpay. Salesforce and Slack. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mergers_and_acquisitions#2020s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_mergers_and_ac... VMware was also an enormous deal. $61b.
  - linotype 2y ago
    Slack was crazy. Aside from huddles I can’t think of a single feature I’ve used that they’ve added since their acquisition by Salesforce. Like what are they doing with so many people? (I know that’s a trope, but seriously…)

reaperducer 2y ago

Whenever you hear about two companies merging and laying off thousands of staff, maybe it’s time to stop letting that happen. Meanwhile, the HN zeitgeist complains about Tesla not being allowed to sell cars directly to consumer. Having lots of independent dealers is a job creation feature, not a bug. Dozens of industries in America have the same regulation. Not everything should be maximally efficient, especially if it reduces competition.

layer8 2y ago

The mergers often also end up making the respective products worse, and reducing competition.