Perhaps you misunderstand that Figma was motivated to create value. A large part of the motivation for many startups is an exit plan wherein they get bought out by established competitors.
If you prevent such purchases, you eliminate a major factor in creating the value to begin with.
The point of the stock market is to trade and build wealth. Yet we have agreed insider trading should be illegal, because it ruins the game for everyone.
> Perhaps you misunderstand that Figma was motivated to create value. A large part of the motivation for many startups is an exit plan wherein they get bought out by established competitors.
> If you prevent such purchases, you eliminate a major factor in creating the value to begin with.
You're basically saying that they wouldn't have made Figma if they'd only been able to sell it for 15 billion.
Same tired argument as the "unless you lower taxes on the wealthiest even more, they'll stop creating jobs!" (Even though the taxes haven't been lower in history than they are right now).
People do stuff even though there are anti-trust laws limiting how many tens of billions they get out of it.
As long as there's insane profits to be made, there'll still be an incentive.
Selling out to the market leader, creating a virtual monopoly that harms the consumers in the long run, isn't the only way to make money on a start-up. Far from it.
If Figma had sold to, say... Autodesk for $15B would that be an anti-trust issue for you? What if they sold to Google?
I'm pretty wary of monopoly abuse. But I'm also very wary of entitled people (including myself sometimes) demanding that somebody else has the responsibility to create great stuff for free to make their life better. It's beyond my ability to create an amazing electric vehicle so somebody else should be required to do it and give it to me for free or else it is an anti-trust violation. Somebody else should make something as good or better than SolidWorks or Fusion or XD for free or else AutoDesk/Adobe/MS/Alphabet/... are harmful monopolists.
I don't like Adobe or AutoDesk or MS or Meta or many others companies. I disagree with many of their behaviors for various reasons. I think some of what they do is or should be illegal. But I think misguided consumption is more often the root problem. And it is a mistake to punish those who take advantage of misguided consumption in a way that encourages more misguided consumption and entitlement.
What are you are are describing are bad motivations. It’s like wanting a salary when volunteering. One doesn’t actually care about value if the only motivation to create said value is to get obscene amounts of money.
> They weren’t creating a company for the “good of mankind”.
I feel most VC blurbs disagree with that, although of course that’s not their actual motivation.
I don’t see how non-profits are relevant other than as examples of companies/organizations that do actually provide value in lieu of massive gains and profit.
And I think you missed my point as I was responding to:
> If you prevent such purchases, you eliminate a major factor in creating the value to begin with.
Because now that it's owned by Adobe they no longer have competition for their XD product. They will likely merge both, resulting in an inferior product. They'll then jack up the price, hurting countless companies that have gotten used to a better way to do their work.
But I'm very glad they generated income for their shareholders.
I would prefer the investors just get paid back plus ROI using the value and revenue the company generates, instead of the standard being just merging the company into a larger one.
Well, if you would like that, you are free to start your own company, find the talent and the like minded investors and take the prerequisite risks to create a company that meets your ideals. But Figma is a private company and the founders get to choose who they sell to.
Yeah, exactly right. People here are saying "I pay 20 dollar a month for something, now whole universe must stay same forever lest that 20 dollar thing disappear"
I think the problem with VC that GP means is more a systemic one - it's not specific or even applicable to Figma, but for other large VC projects.
It's fine if a company like Figma takes VC to build a good product that fills a niche that hasn't been explored before and uses the VC to grow and eventually exit to the general public market so that the investors get their return.
It's not fine if larger companies like Adobe can simply swoop in and pay billions to get rid of a competitor, although that one should be dealt with by anti-trust agencies anyway.
It's not fine if a company like Uber uses cheap VC money to price-dump against essential services - and yes, taxis are essential for those without a car, and the anti-discrimination frameworks make sure that access to them is fairly available to everyone, no matter why they would need a taxi for. Uber, in contrast, routinely got associated with everything from wage dumping over racism [1] to extorting people with excessive surge charges [2].
It's not fine if a company like AirBnB uses cheap VC money to wreak havoc on local rental markets [3][4] or to run effectively hotel-like operations in residential zones, while conveniently ignoring things such as fire codes [5], neighbors' quality of life [6], taxes [7] or that people (both guests and hosts) were and are randomly banned for "background checks" [8][9], a return of ages-old banned housing discrimination.
Society definitely needs a hard regulation on anything where VC is involved.
If a company could bootstrap their company and grow organically, they wouldn’t need VC funding. By definition any company that is using VC funding is pricing their product less than it takes to make it - ie “price dumping”.
There are already laws about zoning that should keep AirBnB in check. I’m doing the digital nomad thing starting next year. I am specifically avoiding AirBnbs and staying in hotels - mostly mid range extended stays.
> Those taxi companies that are their “for the poor” routinely wouldn’t go into “poor” neighborhoods or pick minorities up.
There's no reason to replace an already poor service with one that's even worse and requires a smartphone and a bank account, which adds a further layer of discrimination as about 5% of US households don't even have a bank account, much less a credit card, and 24-13% of poorer classes don't have a smartphone [2].
In contrast, a taxi can (at least by law) be used by anyone with cash, and the data about your travel is not available for police or anyone else to abuse [3].
> By definition any company that is using VC funding is pricing their product less than it takes to make it - ie “price dumping”.
IMO, there's a difference between using VC money to provide funds for growth (aka, a high-risk loan) and using VC money to intentionally provide a service at below-cost - five euros for half a hour taxi ride is not sustainable, it won't even pay for the working time of the driver.
> There are already laws about zoning that should keep AirBnB in check.
Yes, now after years and years of issues and complaints. AirBnB could only grow as large as it did by following the "better ask for forgiveness than permission" lifestyle and blatantly breaking all kinds of laws.
Cell phone penetration in the US is above 85%. Cell phone penetration has been higher in developing countries for years.
At least I as a minority don’t have to worry about a taxi cab bypassing me when I take an Uber.
Taxi companies have been breaking laws for decades against discrimination and don’t get me started about the government monopoly in regards to the medallion system in major cities.
> Cell phone penetration in the US is above 85%. Cell phone penetration has been higher in developing countries for years.
Taxis should be available for everyone, not just the 85% that own a smartphone and don't end up banned by the app out of random [1].
That existing taxi companies don't follow up to the regulations is a different problem (and one where the government definitely has to step up), but Uber and friends aren't even required to follow the same rules, that is the whole point of why these kind of services are so dangerous for society!