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by lhnz 1085 days ago
I don't want to get into an argument with you and didn't explain the argument very well, however, it's not as if I'm just coming up with weird opinions on my own here.

The basis of my argument comes from the director of competition policy at the International Center for Law & Economics, who explains it all in depth here: https://www.ft.com/content/b7fdbb35-e104-47bf-9e03-ef5d8b324...

  > Moreover, start-ups depend on acquisitions. Along with
  > an initial public offering, being bought is the main 
  > way entrepreneurs and venture capital investors can 
  > “exit” the firms they have built. The harder it is to 
  > sell your company, the harder it is to make a 
  > return. Fifty per cent of US start-up executives said
  > that being acquired was a long-term goal, and 90 per
  > cent of US start-up exits in 2008-18 happened thanks
  > to acquisitions. 
  >
  > Empirical evidence suggests investment in start-ups is 
  > sensitive to rules on acquisitions. One paper found 
  > venture capital activity grows by about 40-50 per cent 
  > in countries that enact pro-takeover laws, and US states
  > that introduced anti-takeover laws saw a 27 per cent 
  > decline in VC investment deals compared with those that 
  > did not.
1 comments
barnabee 1073 days ago
Interesting and fair enough, certainly should be a consideration.

Obviously it's easy to think of laws that could be enacted that would make founding a startup more attractive and increase the number of startups and amount of investment in them that everyone would agree would still be bad and shouldn't exist.

This is obviously not such a clear case, but I personally fall on the side that reducing startup formation/investment would be an ok price to pay here.

I have some (but not 100%) confidence that this could mostly or entirely be offset by other improvements such as making going public easier for smaller companies (perhaps similar to London's AIM for example) or creating market/tax incentives that favour startups and smaller companies, and/or penalise companies that become larger, especially by acquiring other companies or entering many relatively unrelated/independent verticals.

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