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by airstrike 916 days ago
But anti-trust isn't being invented now. It's always existed. Companies already factor in anti-trust risk when doing M&A—it's just hard to quantify the expected value of that risk

If anything, IMHO, we've been too lenient with anti-trust in Tech in particular over the past 5-10 years. This just dials things back a little, and makes it so that "hard to quantify" risk is a little more likely than it was before, and certainly a little more likely than zero

I don't think Adobe / Figma specifically is an "otherwise obvious deal" precisely because it has such obvious anti-trust risk. The fact that this merger was even announced is all the proof I need that we were being too lenient. Figma can still sell to any number of huge Tech companies

1 comments

Published guidance is the correct tool. Blocking acquisitions doesn’t really decrease uncertainty.
The guidance already exists. Don't buy your biggest competitor, unless you're but one player in a diversified sector.

Blocking acquisitions creates precedents.

Adobe will be fine; this might wreck its biggest competitor.