I think the state of “build to be acquired” is actually pretty gross and I wouldn’t mind it being pruned back a bit. To call this “overzealous government” is a bit ridiculous. Figma being acquired by Adobe was not good for customers, in most cases the government just allows shit like this to happen, this is the exception, not the rule.

The purpose of a for profit company is to provide a good or service and profit from doing so. You don’t need to be acquired to accomplish that.

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired.

The vast majority of companies are little "lifestyle" businesses without any intention of ever getting acquired by anyone. Your local pizza shop doesn't expect to be a unicorn.

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired

The entire purpose of starting a company is to make a profit by delivering a product or service that the market will willingly buy. The operative word there is "profit" -- something that seems to have going conspicuously missing from companies that are being built for the purpose of being "exited".

No it isn’t just about selling out. It’s to unseat incumbents, deliver better products, make a difference. What do you think Google would have turned out like if Yahoo had bought them for $1m in 1996?

The entire purpose of antitrust regulation is to prevent monopolization.

Both those things can be true and both can be legitimate interests.

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired.

Certainly not in terms of expectation value. Most of the value of a startup at any given funding round is driven by the possibility of a public listing. This is true even though most successful startup outcomes are acquisitions.

> Of the literally hundreds of companies that YC has invested in, only 5 have gone public.

The correct number is 18, not 5. [1]

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/valuation (select the "Public" tab.)

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired.

I imagine this claim is satire, given how outlandish it is. But if I were to take it at face value for a second... Acquired by whom? Other companies... Who were started to... Get acquired themselves? Where did these other companies get the money to begin with? Etc. This is just a stupendously ridiculous take, I just cannot consider it was made in good faith.

> Of the literally hundreds of companies that YC has invested in, only 5 have gone public.

YC is a droplet in the ocean of the economy. Even if we just look at the US, about five million businesses were started in 2022 alone. https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/index.html

Or we’ll see more IPOs. It might change valuations as expectations might be lower but it won’t dry up the VC market.

> The entire purpose of starting a company is to get acquired.

or to make profit. Being acquired used to mean you failed, and had to suck your pride in and let someone else buy you out to pay off your debts.

Luckily, successful companies can also be started without VC money.

This page indicates that YC invested in 18 companies that went public.

https://www.ycombinator.com/topcompanies/valuation

There's also always a private equity market that is often a middle ground between IPO and acquisition.

And in my feeling, I've seen PE getting more active in tech last year (maybe just because valuations went down).

An underzealous government (in regards to antitrust) is as bad as the number of potential acquirers is smaller; in such a monopsony environment purchase prices will be smaller too.

With all respect I think you’re completely wrong - this is not supposed to be the “entire purpose” of starting a company.

Corporate consolidation is not a good end for capitalism. If you believe in the capitalist system you'd prefer that less acquisitions happen given that we've empirical data where a lot of these acquisitions are made to stamp out competition.

If the business model is to be acquired that will require the business model to change, I'd prefer that than a bunch of companies only working to be acquired, fucking customers in the process (and all of the externalities deriving from that, like wasted man-hours to move away from products that will be killed).

You should send this memo to Musk, Zuck and many other entrepeneurs telling them they doing everything wrong.