This is the story of every startup ever "we'll walk like a duck, talk like a duck, but quietly avoid being regulated like a duck for as long as possible to disrupt all the other ducks".
I personally hope that happens. I never want to live/work in SF ever again, so the more tech jobs that leave, the more options I have that aren't SF. These companies are in a city and state that do not deserve their golden geese. The entire time I lived there I was constantly asked myself why I was paying such high taxes to a state that consistently works against my self interest.
I know so many people that live in SF/Bay Area saving up to move away ASAP.
If there were regulations in the way that would have prevented them from doing so, we should probably self-reflect a bit and have a sense of shame.
It is kind of a given that a newcomer to an industry won't be compliant with everything and will need time to build up to full regulatory compliance.
The idea then is for the regulator to work out a compliance roadmap which the regulated commits to, and is audited for compliance with occasionally.
Think of it as a learning experience for small businesses.
We would have to do a much better job at keeping track of people's association through corporation's however, as it would lead to an unintended incentive to just dissolve a company when the regulatory compliance costs heat up, reform a new one, and reset the level of regulatory expectation.
To revert them I'd hope there'd be a compelling case as to why the catalyst that brought the regs into existence no longer applies or will not reappear in the future.
I'm not sure that it's an easy process.
This is the world in which we currently live.
Startups would presumably be as successful as everyone else at dumping and getting away with it, meaning at least a few years of growth.
Nice strawman, but that's not anything I said.
> You make it sound like all regulation is bad.
No... I made it sound like regulation is bad when it negatively affects a good solution from coming into existence. Stripe does not dump toxic chemicals. Rather, it increases access to credit cards and money transfers to people who were being underserved by big banks. Had you ever had to take CC payments in person before square? They made it much easier.
So a publicly traded company with 25B in market cap and member of Russell 1000 index is a 'small company'?
This is called regulatory capture, and is not something to be defended.
More like “every company ever” wants to minimize their taxes.
The side effect of this is that clear rules create the way to circumvent them.
When irreconcilable the courts are how this has to be resolved, and I believe what I wrote is a factor in that argument as municipal governments regulations reactionary based on a the sentiments of a very small number of people.
[EDIT wording]