It's funny that a decade ago the exit strategy of many of these startups would have been to get acquired by MSFT / META / GOOG. Now, the regulators have made a lot of these acquisitions effectively impossible for antitrust reasons.

Is it better for society for promising startups to die on the open market, or get acquired by a monopoly? The third option -- taking down the established players -- appears increasingly unlikely.

> Now, the regulators have made a lot of these acquisitions effectively impossible for antitrust reasons.

Is there any evidence that this is the case ? For very big merger (like nvdia and Arm tried) sure, but I can't think of a single time regulator stop a big player from buying a start up.

I'm sure you realize you're asking me to prove a negative? I don't have the ability to prove to you that something didn't happen or why.

What I know is that a lot of deals aren't even being considered that once were, and antitrust is a huge factor in that consideration.

There's no evidence that any of those startups are better for society, in fact most of them have directly led to worse economic inequality (uber, airbnb) and exacerbating climate change (LLM insanity).

If anything the current system is beyond redemption and should probably be nationalized for the betterment of society. Government investment in technology brought us the transistor and internet, the two things that enabled any of this to exist and it was massively subsidized for the betterment of the public.

Maybe we should follow that model again.