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Comment by indiejade | Hacker News Reader

It's actually the deregulation of Washington that's suffocated entrepreneurship. Because there were/are no checks and balances on the large monoliths' ability to kill or absorb rivals, a lot of little entities have suffered. Washington always says it wants to do what is best for "business," but it rarely distinguishes big business from small. . . it doesn't get the correlation between size and efficiency. The hum-hawing about corporate tax rate is pure whine. Let the little companies live long enough to make a profit upon which they have the ability to pay taxes, eh?

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Would you mind sharing some examples? What promising start-ups have been killed or absorbed in an unfair manner, that used to be, or should obviously be, illegal?

The article supplies pre- and post-SOX IPO counts, and while that doesn't prove anything in itself, they do smell like fish.

Well, the Yahoo/Microsoft thing comes to mind. If, as the WSJ article states, most business plans these days are ending with "and then we get bought by Google" wouldn't you, as the owner of a startup, rather have both Yahoo! and Microsoft vyying for (along with Google) your company? The more "buyers" the better, right?

Another point the article makes is that companies can't afford the massive legal costs of going public and SOX, and that is why so many of them are getting bought up (thus no new public companies). I would think by now that the "cost of going public" would be somewhere along the lines with "the cost of starting a startup" and going down as well -- with digitalization of documents, etc.

So, perhaps it's a matter of the regulation that is in place needing to play "catch up" with the reality of the times.

> Yahoo/Microsoft

I'm not sure I agree with you, but anyway, that deal fell through because of regulation. But observing that one aspect of regulation works, is hardly an argument that deregulation is bad.

> "cost of going public"

Other comments in this thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=406433) suggests that going public means slightly more than digitizing documents. No SAAS, no IM, no iTunes, more lawyers, more accountants. But, arguing "regulation is not hurting that much" is hardly an argument that deregulation is hurting more.

So the only reason small companies succeed is because Uncle Sam prevents them from being gobbled up by cruel larger firms who want to pay their founders lots of money? Hmm...

Please don't downmod me without telling me why you've done so. Do you disagree with my points? Which ones? Are you pro-deregulation? If so, please provide some example about why you think big companies getting bigger by absorbing their competitors is good for entrepreneurship.

Perhaps you have something against me personally? For that, I have no remedy, but to tweet for help: http://twitter.com/indiejade/status/1072506322

"Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Are you pro-deregulation?

yes.

"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent."

from http://www.lp.org/platform

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