Comment Re:*headscratch* (Score 1) 57
but the engineers and sales people would be much better off if the company were acquired.
No, that is your assumption and on you to prove. My argument is in an acquisition many of those will be laid off in short order for "efficiency" reasons and there is precedent for that particularly in filings where consolidation of resources is presented a reason for merger particularly when the other company is struggling. Also part of my proposal is that not allowing mergers will create more competition so those people can get more jobs. If good companies with bad luck deserve to be aquired then how can you argue good employees in bad companies wont get hired again? This is contradictory.
VMware is a great example of that -- it was still the world's best virtualization solution but had been completely eaten from the toes up by free competing solutions.
This example contradicts itself.
it's not even that the company was "dying" just that they ended up in a place that the business could not continue on its current path.
This also does. Unable to make debt is a prime example of how companies die. You took on debt because you were not making money. Profitable companies can get lifelines because they make profit and can tend to show they can continue growth.
Now yes I completely agree that acquiring newer companies is a problem for innovation. Look at Figma -- Adobe tried to buy and kill the product. Because antitrust regulators said no, Figma was not acquired and now they are a colossus of innovation.
*European* regulators to be clear. Sounds like you agree with me. See my thing is I think your latter example, the Figma example is in the 80/20 rule. The vast majority of MA is for this reason the vast minority is for your former reason, the altruistic "they're really good but just couldn't sell their idea". I am very willing to sacrifice the much smaller and much less consequention minority to stop the far more harmful majority.
If an IPO is harder than an acquisition (of course it is), then the acquisition happens.
Well then as part of my plan I would make it easier for companies to go IPO, bingo. What's next?