7 ms·

This is a weird deal? Meta buys a non-controlling stake and says no customers will be affected but the CEO and others are leaving Scale for Meta. Meta also say

by bix6 1y ago

This is a weird deal? Meta buys a non-controlling stake and says no customers will be affected but the CEO and others are leaving Scale for Meta. Meta also says they won’t have access to competitor data but at 49% ownership they get major investor rights? Sounds like an acqui-kill to me?

indy 1y ago
Would buying 49% prevent any government investigations into the deal?
- bix6 1y ago
  Yeah 50% may have triggered antitrust
  - atlasunshrugged 1y ago
    It does seem likely that the deal was at least partially structured to avoid antitrust scrutiny but my impression is that under the DMA/DSA (I can never keep track of which is which) in Europe Meta is technically a gatekeeper and has different obligations so I'll be curious to see what happens there
- paganel 1y ago
  If this is marketed as a strategic acquisition for the national interest of the US tech industry in order to counter-act the Chinese trying to catch up on AI then nothing of the sorts will happen.
- rodonn 1y ago
  It might reduce scrutiny, but not completely prevent it. Clayton act says "No person engaged in commerce or in any activity affecting commerce shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital and no person subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission shall acquire the whole or any part of the assets of another person engaged also in commerce or in any activity affecting commerce, where in any line of commerce or in any activity affecting commerce in any section of the country, the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly."
lucaslazarus 1y ago
Strikes me more as an attempt to maintain plausible deniability if/when the FTC comes knocking
- spiderfarmer 1y ago
  The FTC will do nothing. Not under Trump.
  - Bnjoroge 1y ago
    he's right. Trump is only marginally more M&A-friendly than Biden.
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      Trump is pretty anti-other social media. All the big anti-trust against Meta/Google started under Trump (despite what Zuck claimed to Joe Rogan).
  - lucaslazarus 1y ago
    Perhaps, but it's worth hedging against a potential Trump-Zuck fallout. Also, the statute of limitations for commencing an antitrust investigation is 4 years (15 U.S.C. § 15b).
  - JoshTko 1y ago
    Competitors just need to lobby sufficiently to get action
  - __loam 1y ago
    There is literally an active anti-trust case against Meta right now.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - spiderfarmer 1y ago
Workaccount2 1y ago
Of all the tech companies, Meta is the most ruthless and shameless. You'd have to be a total fool to trust Zuck, especially Zuck who put billions into AR for not much return and now billions into AI to create lackluster lagging models.
- tomrod 1y ago
  I'd trust Zuck if I had a signed, airtight agreement for a large amount of money he paid into an escrow account for something I owned or was transferring ownership. He's very close to peak homo economicus. (EDIT: this next point is wrong, the oral history I heard referred to Winklevoss pops, not Zuckerberg, and I misremembered) Which makes sense, given his father is deep in actuarial services.
  - cyanydeez 1y ago
    "If I were rich, I'd trust other rich people"
    - tomrod 1y ago
      Not what I said. I said if legal machinery were in place, I'd be willing. I would not trust someone simply because we both have significant personal assets.
      - cyanydeez 1y ago
        Have you noticed how legal machinery seems less effective the more money you have?
  - lotsofpulp 1y ago
    Zuckerberg’s dad is/was a dentist. Not that the claim makes any sense even if he were an actuary.
    - tomrod 1y ago
      Oh man, talk about getting my wires crossed. The Winklevoss' twins dad is the actuary!
b00ty4breakfast 1y ago
That's the MO for all these big players. They don't shell out merely for the marketplace advantage, there's always some meta (no pun intended) Gordon Gecko corpo warfare schtick going on in the background. To quote Peter Thiel, "competition is for losers".
gwbas1c 1y ago
Reverse acquisition? IE, similar to how Disney "bought" Pixar, but much of Pixar's IP overshadows Disney's IP; or how Apple bought Next and the current MacOS is basically NextOS under the hood. It's a technique that companies do to avoid disruption: Buy early stage startups, and by the time they could "disrupt" the parent company, the parent company's management is ready to retire, and the former startup's management is ready to take their place.
- oidar 1y ago
  NeXTSTEP not NextOS
  - detourdog 1y ago
    If one is really after accuracy NeXT wasn't a start-up at the time of acquisition.
- n2d4 1y ago
  In what way does Pixar's IP overshadow Disney's? Listing the highest-grossing media franchises [1], Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Star Wars, and Disney Princesses are on #2-#5 respectively, while Pixar's top spot is #16 with Cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - CSMastermind 1y ago
    My understanding is that the talent at Pixar completely took over the leadership of Disney's animation studios.
mooreds 1y ago
The host on this podcast[0] had a good point about the "investment". It was really a merger, but framed as an investment to sidestep regulators. Key attributes: * CEO works for meta * almost but not quite a majority stake taken 0: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/world-bank-cuts-u-s-growth-outlook-meta-invests-in/id1744631325?i=1000712407083 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/world-bank-cuts-u-s-gr...
- ZiiS 1y ago
  The stake of FB and people now employed at FB at the executive level is clearly over 50% it seems very odd they are convincing anyone this is a minority?
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
    > people now employed at FB at the executive level I think it's reasonable that this is not counted, unless there's some possible condition on the stock ownership that I'm not aware of. If they ultimately disagree with the decisions from Facebook then they can, in theory, get help from the other stakeholders to override them. That said, I would not be the least bit surprised if this turned out to be some scheme in which they use a series of technicalities that make the deal look like a merger but "be" an investment.
- gmd63 1y ago
  These types of "Aaackshually" business strategies are repulsive, and are evidence that these people who wield immense responsibility do not deserve it.
  - pishpash 1y ago
    It's Zuck what do you expect?
b0a04gl 1y ago
[dead]
gregorvand 1y ago
Gets around anti competition issues. It’s not an acquisition, it’s just a…
whitej125 1y ago
Likely to steer clear of regulatory scrutiny or approval processes (specifically FTC and DOJ).
mliker 1y ago
It doesn't really affect the other frontier labs too much because OpenAI and Anthropic rely on multiple data vendors for their models so that no outside company is aware of how they train their proprietary models. Forbes reported the other day that OpenAI had been winding down their usage of Scale data: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2025/06/12/scale-ais-business-could-collapse-if-meta-buys-a-stake-and-hires-its-ceo/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2025/06/12/scale-a...

by bix6 1y ago

indy 1y ago

Would buying 49% prevent any government investigations into the deal?

bix6 1y ago
Yeah 50% may have triggered antitrust
- atlasunshrugged 1y ago
  It does seem likely that the deal was at least partially structured to avoid antitrust scrutiny but my impression is that under the DMA/DSA (I can never keep track of which is which) in Europe Meta is technically a gatekeeper and has different obligations so I'll be curious to see what happens there
paganel 1y ago
If this is marketed as a strategic acquisition for the national interest of the US tech industry in order to counter-act the Chinese trying to catch up on AI then nothing of the sorts will happen.
rodonn 1y ago
It might reduce scrutiny, but not completely prevent it. Clayton act says "No person engaged in commerce or in any activity affecting commerce shall acquire, directly or indirectly, the whole or any part of the stock or other share capital and no person subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission shall acquire the whole or any part of the assets of another person engaged also in commerce or in any activity affecting commerce, where in any line of commerce or in any activity affecting commerce in any section of the country, the effect of such acquisition may be substantially to lessen competition, or to tend to create a monopoly."

lucaslazarus 1y ago

Strikes me more as an attempt to maintain plausible deniability if/when the FTC comes knocking

spiderfarmer 1y ago
The FTC will do nothing. Not under Trump.
- Bnjoroge 1y ago
  he's right. Trump is only marginally more M&A-friendly than Biden.
  - lesuorac 1y ago
    Trump is pretty anti-other social media. All the big anti-trust against Meta/Google started under Trump (despite what Zuck claimed to Joe Rogan).
- lucaslazarus 1y ago
  Perhaps, but it's worth hedging against a potential Trump-Zuck fallout. Also, the statute of limitations for commencing an antitrust investigation is 4 years (15 U.S.C. § 15b).
- JoshTko 1y ago
  Competitors just need to lobby sufficiently to get action
- __loam 1y ago
  There is literally an active anti-trust case against Meta right now.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - spiderfarmer 1y ago

Workaccount2 1y ago

Of all the tech companies, Meta is the most ruthless and shameless. You'd have to be a total fool to trust Zuck, especially Zuck who put billions into AR for not much return and now billions into AI to create lackluster lagging models.

tomrod 1y ago
I'd trust Zuck if I had a signed, airtight agreement for a large amount of money he paid into an escrow account for something I owned or was transferring ownership. He's very close to peak homo economicus. (EDIT: this next point is wrong, the oral history I heard referred to Winklevoss pops, not Zuckerberg, and I misremembered) Which makes sense, given his father is deep in actuarial services.
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  "If I were rich, I'd trust other rich people"
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Not what I said. I said if legal machinery were in place, I'd be willing. I would not trust someone simply because we both have significant personal assets.
    - cyanydeez 1y ago
      Have you noticed how legal machinery seems less effective the more money you have?
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Zuckerberg’s dad is/was a dentist. Not that the claim makes any sense even if he were an actuary.
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Oh man, talk about getting my wires crossed. The Winklevoss' twins dad is the actuary!

b00ty4breakfast 1y ago

That's the MO for all these big players. They don't shell out merely for the marketplace advantage, there's always some meta (no pun intended) Gordon Gecko corpo warfare schtick going on in the background. To quote Peter Thiel, "competition is for losers".

gwbas1c 1y ago

Reverse acquisition? IE, similar to how Disney "bought" Pixar, but much of Pixar's IP overshadows Disney's IP; or how Apple bought Next and the current MacOS is basically NextOS under the hood. It's a technique that companies do to avoid disruption: Buy early stage startups, and by the time they could "disrupt" the parent company, the parent company's management is ready to retire, and the former startup's management is ready to take their place.

oidar 1y ago
NeXTSTEP not NextOS
- detourdog 1y ago
  If one is really after accuracy NeXT wasn't a start-up at the time of acquisition.
n2d4 1y ago
In what way does Pixar's IP overshadow Disney's? Listing the highest-grossing media franchises [1], Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Star Wars, and Disney Princesses are on #2-#5 respectively, while Pixar's top spot is #16 with Cars. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media_franchises https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_media...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- CSMastermind 1y ago
  My understanding is that the talent at Pixar completely took over the leadership of Disney's animation studios.

mooreds 1y ago

The host on this podcast[0] had a good point about the "investment". It was really a merger, but framed as an investment to sidestep regulators. Key attributes: * CEO works for meta * almost but not quite a majority stake taken 0: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/world-bank-cuts-u-s-growth-outlook-meta-invests-in/id1744631325?i=1000712407083 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/world-bank-cuts-u-s-gr...

ZiiS 1y ago
The stake of FB and people now employed at FB at the executive level is clearly over 50% it seems very odd they are convincing anyone this is a minority?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y ago
  > people now employed at FB at the executive level I think it's reasonable that this is not counted, unless there's some possible condition on the stock ownership that I'm not aware of. If they ultimately disagree with the decisions from Facebook then they can, in theory, get help from the other stakeholders to override them. That said, I would not be the least bit surprised if this turned out to be some scheme in which they use a series of technicalities that make the deal look like a merger but "be" an investment.
gmd63 1y ago
These types of "Aaackshually" business strategies are repulsive, and are evidence that these people who wield immense responsibility do not deserve it.
- pishpash 1y ago
  It's Zuck what do you expect?

b0a04gl 1y ago

[dead]

gregorvand 1y ago

Gets around anti competition issues. It’s not an acquisition, it’s just a…

whitej125 1y ago

Likely to steer clear of regulatory scrutiny or approval processes (specifically FTC and DOJ).

mliker 1y ago

It doesn't really affect the other frontier labs too much because OpenAI and Anthropic rely on multiple data vendors for their models so that no outside company is aware of how they train their proprietary models. Forbes reported the other day that OpenAI had been winding down their usage of Scale data: https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2025/06/12/scale-ais-business-could-collapse-if-meta-buys-a-stake-and-hires-its-ceo/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardnieva/2025/06/12/scale-a...