The reality is that for extremely high-growth companies such as Figma, only companies with an extremely strong existing business and strategic fit can afford to acquire them. Corel, for example, was valued at $1bn in their 2019 acquisition. There's absolutely no way they could acquire Figma. At the same time, VCs are betting on Figma-like outsized exits for their model work.

I get people are dying to stick it to the big tech cos, but the reality is that the long-term effect of actions like this is reduced funding and less new, disruptive companies – and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc.

I think the "disruption" narrative has played itself out by now. Nothing has been disrupted. Society still largely functions the same way as it did 20 years ago, and the same firms are mostly still running the same businesses.

We were promised a radical new world, what we got was a couple of apps for fast food delivery from McDonald's.

Hmm... I struggle with your post. What about AMD vs Intel? Or TSMC / Samsung vs Intel? Intel is far weaker that it was 20 years ago, and chips are cheaper (inflation adjusted) and WAY faster 20 years later. Is that not a win? I feel like desktop computing is basically flying cars at this point. For 1500 USD, you can get 5GHz CPU, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB NVMe drive, reasonable GPU that is utterly light speed compared to 20 years ago. The first time I ever used an NVMe drive, I literally thought the Linux commands were not running correct because they finished so quickly!

Last one: I promise that I am not trolling here: What about psuedo-self-driving that Tesla and a few others have in cars now? On an expressway, it is pretty amazing -- hands off the wheel, talk with your friends with no worries of distraction.

I think the person you’re replying to was referring to the post-smartphone startup era. All those hardware companies you mentioned are older than dirt. None of them qualify as “disruptive, VC-backed startups” like Figma, Uber, or Airbnb.

How would Figma be disruptive or weakening tech giants if their plan is to be acquired by them?

Clearly Figma is providing a valuable product to the market. In part visible here by how people celebrate this decision. But people are celebrating Figma's continued independence without understanding that without the possibility of being acquired for a large amount of money, the funding and incentive situation that resulted in the beloved independent Figma wouldn't exist.

This is not as much about Figma, which is big already and will be fine, but the 100 other potential Figmas that might not even been started yet. They will have more difficulty finding funding, attracting employees with equity, etc., when the scenario 'big tech co acquires company for lots of $' doesn't exist anymore.

Why would anyone go worth at a small company for equity if there's no chance to get liquidity? Why would investors invest? This decision might improve the short-term situation of the market, but over the long-term, I can only see how it benefits the big companies, which rely on today's cashflows / RSUs to attract people.

> beloved independent Figma wouldn't exist.

Are you saying that the business of "we make a thing and we ask for money from our users for said thing" model cannot work?

> Why would anyone go worth at a small company for equity if there's no chance to get liquidity? Why would investors invest?

Presumably because they hope the company become successful and it sells many licences and they get a share from that pile of money.

> Are you saying that the business of "we make a thing and we ask for money from our users for said thing" model cannot work?

I'm saying that companies like Figma, which has raised $333 million dollars in venture capital, at up to a $10bn valuation, cannot exist if those investors don't see sufficient options for liquidity.

And given that people strongly value companies like Figma, as evident in this very thread, that would be a bad outcome all in all. The only market participants for whom this wouldn't be a bad outcomes would be big, established businesses that have to fear less startup competition.

> And given that people strongly value companies like Figma, as evident in this very thread, that would be a bad outcome all in all.

We value Figma the product. I couldn't care less about how much money they raised.

This is why I'm asking if you think it is impossible to make a Figma like product financed from you know the users paying for that product.

"I value Figma the product, I couldn't care less about how much money they raised" is an argument like "My power comes out the socket, so I couldn't care less about building power plants". It's hard to have one without the other. Figma the product was built with the the money they raised.

> Figma the product was built with the the money they raised.

Ok. But do you think that is the only way it could have been built? Somehow you are sidestepping that question.

They couldn't acquire Figma for $20 billion but that doesn't mean Figma isn't acquirable. It just means the founders and investors get a bit less.

> and strengthening the situation for the cash-rich behemoths like Microsoft, Google, etc.

It certainly isn't good for Adobe as they will have a strong competitor in Figma to deal with.

> It certainly isn't good for Adobe

It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products better.

...I hope!

>It is good for Adobe: they'll be forced to make their products bette

Which they thought was harder than spending $20 billion acquiring a competitor.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say that they that there is no way for them to make a product that will steal Figma's market for less than $20 billion.

Adobe's despised reputation in business practices makes it hard for users to choose Adobe when any other creative option when it is available.

That would certainly be good for Adobe's users, but it means they'll have to put in a lot of work, which costs money that could otherwise buy so many yachts.

Back in the olden days before the free-money-zero-interest rate policy, companies subsisted on selling their product, not their company.

I'm fine with some other company that has a track record of doing bad things to the things they've purchased, which is no different than the company I'm against buying this company.

How are you okay with MSFT? The logic is not very sound

I guess the parent's point was that it's better for Figma to be acquired by a company that clearly has a Figma-shaped hole in their lineup, rather than someone with a lot of existing overlap that will likely just strangle it quietly in the night.

with a company infamous for "Embrace, extend, and extinguish", I wouldn't trust MSFT to recognize a hole needs to be filled.

TBF, they kept Skype, GitHub, and Minecraft, running fairly well - one can disagree on the features, but they did get continuous development and support, they weren't just "deprecated" and sunset like, say, Yahoo would do.

Microsoft has changed a lot since the late-1990s, really.