I'm not so sure Figma is in a better spot, even with this new cash in hand.
I'd bet cash money that there are at least some for whom the paycheck means they can do their thing and not have to take a day job. These are the sorts of people who create a Figma instead of an enshittification.
The trick is always to get paid something instead of having to get a day job. And I'm sure there are folks who 'have to come into work' and are still doing good and worthy jobs… but man! You figure they are all like that? At Figma, of all places?
Never work in the music business, is all I can say. Or filmmaking. There are entire industries that ride on the ability to wildly underpay talented people just so they can do the things they're excited about doing. Far from 'not promising a huge payout', you can absolutely screw large numbers of people if they get to hear the band play, or get to look through the viewfinder and see the rushes.
$1B would be enough to cover that completely, but as a person who has been in companies that have been acquired. (multiple times), that's not really how it works.
I've never worked anywhere that started working on integrating or unifying roadmaps before the contracts were inked and the deal fully ratified.
Because it's not really legal. I've been a similar situation previously, and we were specifically forbidden from working on any integration projects until the deal closed, as in the legal department gave a company-wide presentation on exactly what kind of work was and wasn't allowed (e.g. obviously execs/legal folks could work towards completing the merger, but working on actual engineering integration was expressly forbidden).
Also, they are not working on any Adobe roadmap. Other than a few offsite brainstorm session, no real work has been put into integrating with Adobe.
That seems highly unlikely.
