5 ms·
How will that work - for example Y Combinator classes. They cannot be acquired? What about acquihires? Cant stop that - employees have their own agency.
by amazingamazing 5mo ago
How will that work - for example Y Combinator classes. They cannot be acquired? What about acquihires? Cant stop that - employees have their own agency.
- jgalt212 5mo agoI think 5-15 person employee businesses do not concern trust busters.
- amazingamazing 5mo agoWhats the connection between the number of employees and anti trust? Also, there are plenty of YC companies with far more than 15 employees.
- estearum 5mo agoGenerally you don't hold a market dominant position in any sector that anti-trust regulators care about at 15 employees? Frankly this stuff is impossible to talk about in the abstract. The details of every individual case matters. If you're actually curious (instead of just playing a shell game), you can go look up the types of analysis that FTC does to evaluate market dominance and whether a given transaction will excessively consolidate a market.
- Ekaros 5mo agoIf the acquirer has too big or dominant position already in the specific sector no. They should not be able to sweep the board of all companies doing single thing.
- toomuchtodo 5mo agoIf the acquirer attempts to acquire a startup (regardless of investor) for anti trust reasons, or there are anti trust concerns, the M&A activity is disallowed by regulators. A recent example is Figma and Adobe. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Figma%20Adobe&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- amazingamazing 5mo agoSeems vague. What is an anti trust reason? Figma and Adobe id a great example. Both are doing very poorly.
- toomuchtodo 5mo agoI am not an anti trust enforcer or scholar, so I'm going to defer to experts in the field: Lina Khan, Matt Stoller, etc. That is the point of experts in a domain.
- amazingamazing 5mo agoGiven the vagueness it is no surprise nothing happens.
- toomuchtodo 5mo ago> Given the vagueness it is no surprise nothing happens. Lots of success during the last admin for those paying attention. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-releases-summary-key-accomplishments https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/... https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/lina-khans-transformative-leadership-revitalized-the-ftc-and-set-a-new-standard-for-antitrust-enforcement/ https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/lina-khans-tr... https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/factsheet-the-ftc-is-holding-corporate-actors-accountable-protecting-small-businesses-workers-and-consumers-2/ https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/factsheet-the-ftc-...
- amazingamazing 5mo agoMost of these are not blocking merges or sales. What is your point? We are talking about the original comment which advocates ending consolidations.
- estearum 5mo ago
- palmotea 5mo ago> How will that work - for example Y Combinator classes. They cannot be acquired? For the record: national economic policy shouldn't revolve around Y Combinator classes and similar startups. I'm totally fine if it turns out a sensible antitrust policy completely destroys the acquisition exit pathway for tech startups. I'm not saying one will, but I'm saying that's a cost I'm willing to pay.
- amazingamazing 5mo agoYComb was just an example, though. Should companies be able to be bought and sold at all? My opinion is yes. Agree or disagree?
- asolove 5mo agoThe OP explicitly answers this: go back to pre-80s antitrust policy. Companies can be bought and sold but not if it creates concentrations of economic power that allow them to dictate prices to vendors or customers.
- amazingamazing 5mo agoThis is vague and not actionable. Should Microsoft and Amazon have been able to buy Anthropic and OpenAI 5 years ago? People always give these vague guidelines (and even the guidelines in the 80s were) and wonder why they are easily circumvented.
- miltonlost 5mo agoHow is going back to a policy that used to work "vague and unactionable"? It literally had been actionable.
- amazingamazing 5mo agoIt did not work though. Bell and Standard Oil are notable examples. What else?