Why is it so hard for startups to compete with Cadence?

The other thing they'll need to do is not get bought out. Reportedly, Figma is competing with Adobe which was worse than an oligopoly. And there was an attempted buy-out that didn't go through. Only by staying on their own could it work.

I do understand a lot of startups just burn VC funds waiting for a buy-out, though. Maybe if the big Google and Microsoft were the buyers it would be better.

It's also a bit funny that these incumbents seem to spend more effort buying companies than they do improving their own tools.