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Comment by karaterobot | Hacker News Reader

On the one hand, as a designer who uses Figma every day, this is great news. On the other hand, the fact that Dylan Field was willing to do it in the first place felt like a bit of a heel turn. Yeah, it's a lot of money, I know. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I've already shifted my expectations for the long term direction of the product from "they can do no wrong" to "when is the other shoe going to drop?"

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A CEO also owes it to their employees and investors to let everyone have a massive payday.

I think this is at the core of the rot of American society. The thinking that a CEO "owes" the marketing of their company so as to cash it in or even turn profits is, in my opinion, is a mark of the biggest moral ineptitude of the western world's thinking. Yes, I realize this is the 'norm', but it clashes with deep values of the people who aren't shareholders, but are no doubt vested in the product the company produces, mainly the customers. It ignores their needs completely because they don't own stock. "We sold the company, and the new owners bastardized it by slapping their logo on it by eliminating the free tier" is almost commonplace now in business dogma, and yes, most people think it is the kind of strategy 'owed' to shareholders, but this one-sided thinking ignores the better interest of users who the company has built their business on the backs of, and who will now be bait-and-switched into a subscription model, never mind the needs that drove them to the product in the first place. Yes, this is how capitalism works. What I'm saying is that capitalism, as a model, is flawed from a moralistically balanced point of view. It's a never-ending race to the bottom by optimizing for greed until every drop of monetization is squeezed out and every person is left without. Should the owner's employees make money, I mean after all they do the work? Yes, but who takes into account the inestimable value added by the initial users who's interaction with the product shaped it into what it is today?

"it clashes with deep values of the people who aren't shareholders, but are no doubt vested in the product the company produces, mainly the customers. It ignores their needs completely because they don't own stock."

Presumably companies generate value for shareholders by selling things to customers and generating profits, which makes customers the ultimate beneficiaries. What companies are you thinking of that ignores their customers' needs completely and are still quite successful and valuable for shareholders?

Here here. One word, nay, one letter in response:

Do you actually believe that, or are you mocking a bit of startup-culture hubris?

I’m about as anti-consolidation as someone can be, but I’m not about to blame a CEO for selling when you’re offered a price way above any realistic valuation. I put this at the feet of Adobe and regulators, not the guy taking the biggest payday opportunity possible for his employees and shareholders.

I absolutely believe it when the vast majority of the employees for the company in question were compensated with stock options.

This is the risk you take when you choose options over cash.

No, their investors.

Employees don't automatically have the same motivations as the investors.

If you want an employee with exactly the same motivation as an investor, hire an embezzler.

> when is the other shoe going to drop?

Keep an eye out for the IPO, that'll be their next chance to sell out their customers.

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