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Comment by valenterry | Hacker News Reader

What you say isn't really wrong, but I guess there is a different perspective.

I wish there were more startups that just keep operating standalone without being bought. Having the often passionate founders staying in control and evolving their company.

Of course, if they can sell than they get more money out of that and maybe have time for something else/new. But at the same time, how does it impact society if passionate founders leave all the time? Maybe that isn't really great for the overall progress.

On the other hand, were there less startups if they can't be sold/bought as easily? I'm not sure, but I imagine the impact wouldn't be so huge, since I expect for most people, selling their company is more the icing on the cake and not the major reason why they start something on their own.

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I believe in freedom and individual rights. It’s so hard to build a company. Very hard. Try it yourself someday if you don’t believe me. Small, medium, large, lifestyle, whatever your endgame is I guarantee it’s 100x harder than you envisioned.

You say you wish more startups operated standalone. Is it possible that the same person who can build a company from zero to 100 people isn’t qualified and / or wanting to take it from 100 to 1000 people? Shouldn’t it be her right to sell her asset, and start something new?

Some people believe that society has some claim on companies, meaning the government should be able to arbitrarily coerce any company of any size to do anything. Less-logical people claim that society has a claim when a company reaches some threshold of size (which makes no sense as no one can explain what that size is except “eh I guess a billion dollars in revenue”).

The only defensible logic is to let the owner do what they want. Otherwise it’s authoritarian.

I feel like the logic here is that if companies behave badly enough competitors will emerge and kill the bad company. This school of thought was first pioneered by Robert Bork in the 70s along with the “consumer welfare standard” that hey if you can’t prove it’s hurting consumers then who cares. This is the dominant view of establishment antitrust lawyers to this day and why American industries from chocolate to diapers to national defense are concentrated.

The reality is that if the owners do what they want they will buy competitors, rent seek and not innovate. If the government seeks to meddle they will buy lobbyists. Additionally firms that have their market cornered will squeeze workers and their vendors. Finally close ties between concentrated industry and the government leads to more authoritarian rule.

In 2021, American companies represented 65% of global stock value.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/top-100-companies-usa...

America has 4% of global population. This tiny country population-wise is beating the shit out of everyone else by 1000x in economic and military might. Maybe you should see our system in a better light.

By this argument there can be no flaws in the American system, right?

How about advocating for an economic revolution to align the system closer to Argentina and Venezuela is dumb considering the US is clearly the best on earth by a significant margin? No one prevents you from moving away.

Who here is advocating for Argentina's or Venuzuala's economic system?

If it's 100 degrees in the room and I want it to be cooler that doesn't mean I'm advocating for the room to be 0 degrees. Your need to exaggerate the point of others points to a weakness in your own argument.

Note that 65% of global stock value does not mean 65% of global value. The US has a much higher number of public companies. That doesn't mean that they are better.

All of the system? Including the progressive taxes?

You should also consider that we don't serve the economy. The economy should serve us.

Of that economic output you're so proud of, the vast majority of it ends up in the hands of rich people. Why would the average person want to defend that system?

> Is it possible that the same person who can build a company from zero to 100 people isn’t qualified and / or wanting to take it from 100 to 1000 people? Shouldn’t it be her right to sell her asset, and start something new?

Well, they don't have to sell the company to start something new. They can hire/appoint someone to take care and essentially only roughly supervise them which really doesn't take much time. The only difference is really the ownership part.

I still get your point and yeah, it is a disadvantage. But individual freedom has to be balanced against the needs of the whole society too.

> The only defensible logic is to let the owner do what they want. Otherwise it’s authoritarian.

Not really. Look, the owners of companies benefit from society as well. They get infrastructure, stability, especially laws and their enforcement and so on. This is not a given. The society doesn't let random people do what they want, e.g. steal from the owner of the company. Would you call that authoritarian? Certainly not. Neither is putting boundaries of what you can do with the stuff you own.

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