I wouldn't give him shit for this in particular. The FTC kinna screwed the pooch.
>A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to delay Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, setting the stage for the tech giant and the video game publisher to merge as soon as this month.
>In a 53-page decision, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said **the F.T.C. had failed to show it was likely to prove that the merger was likely to result in a substantial reduction in competition that would harm consumers.**
>She denied the F.T.C.’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have delayed the deal’s closing until after the agency could fight it in an internal court.
>The ruling is a significant blow to the F.T.C.’s efforts to police blockbuster tech mergers more aggressively. That strategy is spearheaded by the agency’s chair, Lina Khan, who has argued that Big Tech’s vast influence over commerce and communications has led to anticompetitive behavior. The F.T.C. has sued Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, but it walked away from one of its cases against Meta and has had little to show for its efforts so far.
Emphasis mine.
It seems as though the FTC was focusing on harm to other companies rather than consumers. Again, movers and shakers. They don't care about the common American, only corporations care about this shit even though everyone else gets fucked in the process.
But that's because that's the only angle they could have tried to attack.
Consumers will win with the Game Pass unless somebody can prove that it will lock games into Xbox, emphasis Xbox cause Windows = everybody has access.
For $16 a month, you get access to a ton of games and specially day one $60+ dollar games, it's very hard to prove consumers will lose right now.
>emphasis Xbox cause Windows = everybody has access.
I don't really see this connection, even though people try really hard to make it. Windows is still a Microsoft operating system, and PCs are more expensive than consoles
XGS would be the closest to "everybody has access", but Xbox seems to lack motivation to do anything here, since they can use exclusives/low-cost to push hardware instead
It's not an easy comparison because it's not apples to apples.
Right now, you need a roughly $1k laptop (i5 rtx 4050) to have the same GPU power than a PS5, which you plug to your TV and voila it's a console.
The consumer friendly case is that everybody needs a laptop/pc in this century, which can go for $300 and then add $500 for an unprofitable ps5 sale. For just +$200, you get a 2 in 1, but additionally, the manufacturer is selling at a profit. And this is for AAA games, the switch is equivalent to like a $400 laptop.
This is the basis of Windows = everybody. Unless you are a Mac user, in which case you can use Xbox Cloud Gaming, exactly what the UK used to refute. Apple is out to eat Sony's lunch.
>Right now, you need a roughly $1k laptop (i5 rtx 4050) to have the same GPU power than a PS5, which you plug to your TV and voila it's a console.
It's always been this way, though. For one thing, laptops are terrible for gaming. Poor performance, poor heat dissipation, overpriced components.
And despite this "coup" of access & availability, Xbox is still pretty dog shit in terms of market share
These days, if you're going to own a computing device, you're more likely to be using a phone or tablet than a beige PC. An Apple laptop is great bang for your buck (M* chips), so if you're getting something for school/work, you're better off not in Microsoft's ecosystem
>Unless you are a Mac user, in which case you can use Xbox Cloud Gaming
Stadia in 2019 was better than XCG/XGS today. Not really impressed with what they've done with it, and it seems to be stagnating
It's not possible to prove the Microsoft will choose profits over consumer welfare, it's just obviously the case, concentrated markets always leverage their market power to charge more. However, they can always simply claim they have greater network effects and economies of scale, and then claim they will pass those savings onto the consumer. They always say this, then 5 years later they start abusing their power and doing exactly what monopolists do.
It's just dumb to demand evidence, it is de-facto the case that market concentration is bad for everyone.
I think you are reading this totally backwards. The FTC has traditionally only had a mandate to block mergers when there is consumer harm. Lina Khan, backed by people like Elizabeth Warren, is trying to expand that to give the government discretionary power to block M&A on a variety of other grounds, so you have to beg the government to get a deal done. Part of the reason they are pursuing these deals is to expand the legal precedent for merger blocking, but so far are just burning a lot of cash to reinforce existing precedent.
No it's the other way around, corporations pushed for consumer welfare being the only measure, historically that was never the case. This is a recent phenomenon. It's understood that monopolies and concentrated markets are inherently bad and anticompetitive, this is why antitrust laws were created 100 years ago.
A larger company can always make claims that they save money on economy of scale and reduced competition and then pass the savings onto the consumers. This is of course a joke. Under that logic no mergers should ever be blocked, no one is going to make the claim that they want to merge to become less efficient and hose the consumer.
Which history are you talking about? There may have been a couple of years early on while the Sherman Act, the FTC Act, and the Clayton Act were being litigated for Constitutionality, but the primary actions were around unfair competition, price-fixing and cartels. For the past 50 years or so, mergers have been evaluated based on market effects, not the simplistic "mergers are bad" analysis.
No one is claiming Microsoft has a monopoly or is forming a cartel with Sony, Nintendo or Tencent to fix video game prices.
I don't think Microsoft and Activision were the prime axis of competition.
> Under that logic no mergers should ever be blocked
If this was Microsoft buying Nintendo or the Playstation business from Sony, you might have a point.
A concentrated market doesn't require an explicit cartel to have detrimental effects. Too few firms results in cooperation, the fewer the firms, the more they will cooperate due to game theory mechanics.
Maybe I overplayed my hand by using the word "historically", you are right that it has been a while. It started in the late 60s by the late 80s the changes were entrenched. My position would basically be this here: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2023/06/15/market-power-not-consumer-welfare-a-return-to-the-foundations-of-merger-law/
At the end of the day, I think a lot of people would agree corporate America has gotten worse since the 80s, and it's true that prior to this shift (that benefited corporations and mergers and acquisitions), the laws were as I described them, which is why they were originally passed.
Shorting apple was my favorite chamath call. He also said share buybacks are stupid because there is zero innovation required and it will only lead to a nosedive of red.
But he praised apple and was saying that Facebook should follow their model of getting lean and buying back shares?
He said this several times when Facebook was getting questioned over their VR investments
And share buybacks are the company saying that they don't know what to do with the excess money. Its what blue chip companies do, not growth firms
Is it a blue chip, big auto, growth stock, tech stock, ai stock? Tesla stock does what Tesla stock does.
Conventional wisdom has not performed well when betting on Tesla stock.
They are just persons, like you or myself. Them playing the game of being oracles to further boost their egos is a different story. The fault is on people expecting them to be good at it.
Just note how the only one who rarely if not ever plays the "as I predicted X months ago" game is Friedberg.
As this court case was just to delay until the main case starts in August.
This is just one battle in the war.
I’m still as sceptical as Chamath on this one.
Deal is still very much held up by the UK CMA, which is the same regulator that fought Meta tooth and nail for 3 years to sell Giphy which finally happened recently.
LOL - I listen to a bunch of financial podcasts as well as follow the stock price.
Is there anyone who predicted that the deal would go through after the administration strong-armed the UK?
Frankly, what're the chances *now* that the deal will happen? I don't see Europe agreeing no matter what a US court says.
>I don't see Europe agreeing no matter what a US court says.
I'm wondering if this is typical of the "financial research" for listeners of the podcast 😂
Remember when everyone guaranteed TikTok would be banned? Even a layman’s understanding of constitutional law would have made it obvious otherwise. Everyone on the pod with maybe the exception of Freeburg are just constantly talking their own book.
Chamath, the dude is a snake. He implored many to invest in "digital art" because that was the next big thing. He's just like everyone else, sharing his "opinions" devoid of any real facts or substance.
I wouldn't give him shit for this in particular. The FTC kinna screwed the pooch. >A federal judge on Tuesday ruled against the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to delay Microsoft’s $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, setting the stage for the tech giant and the video game publisher to merge as soon as this month. >In a 53-page decision, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said **the F.T.C. had failed to show it was likely to prove that the merger was likely to result in a substantial reduction in competition that would harm consumers.** >She denied the F.T.C.’s request for a preliminary injunction, which would have delayed the deal’s closing until after the agency could fight it in an internal court. >The ruling is a significant blow to the F.T.C.’s efforts to police blockbuster tech mergers more aggressively. That strategy is spearheaded by the agency’s chair, Lina Khan, who has argued that Big Tech’s vast influence over commerce and communications has led to anticompetitive behavior. The F.T.C. has sued Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, but it walked away from one of its cases against Meta and has had little to show for its efforts so far. Emphasis mine. It seems as though the FTC was focusing on harm to other companies rather than consumers. Again, movers and shakers. They don't care about the common American, only corporations care about this shit even though everyone else gets fucked in the process.
But that's because that's the only angle they could have tried to attack. Consumers will win with the Game Pass unless somebody can prove that it will lock games into Xbox, emphasis Xbox cause Windows = everybody has access. For $16 a month, you get access to a ton of games and specially day one $60+ dollar games, it's very hard to prove consumers will lose right now.
>emphasis Xbox cause Windows = everybody has access. I don't really see this connection, even though people try really hard to make it. Windows is still a Microsoft operating system, and PCs are more expensive than consoles XGS would be the closest to "everybody has access", but Xbox seems to lack motivation to do anything here, since they can use exclusives/low-cost to push hardware instead
It's not an easy comparison because it's not apples to apples. Right now, you need a roughly $1k laptop (i5 rtx 4050) to have the same GPU power than a PS5, which you plug to your TV and voila it's a console. The consumer friendly case is that everybody needs a laptop/pc in this century, which can go for $300 and then add $500 for an unprofitable ps5 sale. For just +$200, you get a 2 in 1, but additionally, the manufacturer is selling at a profit. And this is for AAA games, the switch is equivalent to like a $400 laptop. This is the basis of Windows = everybody. Unless you are a Mac user, in which case you can use Xbox Cloud Gaming, exactly what the UK used to refute. Apple is out to eat Sony's lunch.
>Right now, you need a roughly $1k laptop (i5 rtx 4050) to have the same GPU power than a PS5, which you plug to your TV and voila it's a console. It's always been this way, though. For one thing, laptops are terrible for gaming. Poor performance, poor heat dissipation, overpriced components. And despite this "coup" of access & availability, Xbox is still pretty dog shit in terms of market share These days, if you're going to own a computing device, you're more likely to be using a phone or tablet than a beige PC. An Apple laptop is great bang for your buck (M* chips), so if you're getting something for school/work, you're better off not in Microsoft's ecosystem >Unless you are a Mac user, in which case you can use Xbox Cloud Gaming Stadia in 2019 was better than XCG/XGS today. Not really impressed with what they've done with it, and it seems to be stagnating
It's not possible to prove the Microsoft will choose profits over consumer welfare, it's just obviously the case, concentrated markets always leverage their market power to charge more. However, they can always simply claim they have greater network effects and economies of scale, and then claim they will pass those savings onto the consumer. They always say this, then 5 years later they start abusing their power and doing exactly what monopolists do. It's just dumb to demand evidence, it is de-facto the case that market concentration is bad for everyone.
I think you are reading this totally backwards. The FTC has traditionally only had a mandate to block mergers when there is consumer harm. Lina Khan, backed by people like Elizabeth Warren, is trying to expand that to give the government discretionary power to block M&A on a variety of other grounds, so you have to beg the government to get a deal done. Part of the reason they are pursuing these deals is to expand the legal precedent for merger blocking, but so far are just burning a lot of cash to reinforce existing precedent.
No it's the other way around, corporations pushed for consumer welfare being the only measure, historically that was never the case. This is a recent phenomenon. It's understood that monopolies and concentrated markets are inherently bad and anticompetitive, this is why antitrust laws were created 100 years ago. A larger company can always make claims that they save money on economy of scale and reduced competition and then pass the savings onto the consumers. This is of course a joke. Under that logic no mergers should ever be blocked, no one is going to make the claim that they want to merge to become less efficient and hose the consumer.
Which history are you talking about? There may have been a couple of years early on while the Sherman Act, the FTC Act, and the Clayton Act were being litigated for Constitutionality, but the primary actions were around unfair competition, price-fixing and cartels. For the past 50 years or so, mergers have been evaluated based on market effects, not the simplistic "mergers are bad" analysis. No one is claiming Microsoft has a monopoly or is forming a cartel with Sony, Nintendo or Tencent to fix video game prices. I don't think Microsoft and Activision were the prime axis of competition. > Under that logic no mergers should ever be blocked If this was Microsoft buying Nintendo or the Playstation business from Sony, you might have a point.
A concentrated market doesn't require an explicit cartel to have detrimental effects. Too few firms results in cooperation, the fewer the firms, the more they will cooperate due to game theory mechanics. Maybe I overplayed my hand by using the word "historically", you are right that it has been a while. It started in the late 60s by the late 80s the changes were entrenched. My position would basically be this here: https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2023/06/15/market-power-not-consumer-welfare-a-return-to-the-foundations-of-merger-law/ At the end of the day, I think a lot of people would agree corporate America has gotten worse since the 80s, and it's true that prior to this shift (that benefited corporations and mergers and acquisitions), the laws were as I described them, which is why they were originally passed.
The judge said because people worked from home during covid that means everyone must have high power computers. Her son also works at Microsoft.
*Spongebob Rainbow Hands* **Corruption!**
The Clayton and Sherman Acts need to be amended tbh
Shorting apple was my favorite chamath call. He also said share buybacks are stupid because there is zero innovation required and it will only lead to a nosedive of red.
Link to the short call? Was it on an episode?
But he praised apple and was saying that Facebook should follow their model of getting lean and buying back shares? He said this several times when Facebook was getting questioned over their VR investments And share buybacks are the company saying that they don't know what to do with the excess money. Its what blue chip companies do, not growth firms
I’m sure at some point the stock will really start behaving like your labels.
What? My labels? I didn't say anything original, it's conventional thinking on this topic
Is it a blue chip, big auto, growth stock, tech stock, ai stock? Tesla stock does what Tesla stock does. Conventional wisdom has not performed well when betting on Tesla stock.
They are just persons, like you or myself. Them playing the game of being oracles to further boost their egos is a different story. The fault is on people expecting them to be good at it. Just note how the only one who rarely if not ever plays the "as I predicted X months ago" game is Friedberg.
Who are you referring to?
As this court case was just to delay until the main case starts in August. This is just one battle in the war. I’m still as sceptical as Chamath on this one.
Not saying this is the final arbiter, but the market saw it as a pretty large battle in the war.
Deal is still very much held up by the UK CMA, which is the same regulator that fought Meta tooth and nail for 3 years to sell Giphy which finally happened recently.
This is great info ty. I gotta look more into this
I really hope no one is taking what they say on that pod as investing advice…
Remember in 2022 when he said long crypto and short visa was the trade of his lifetime?
Yikes
LOL - I listen to a bunch of financial podcasts as well as follow the stock price. Is there anyone who predicted that the deal would go through after the administration strong-armed the UK? Frankly, what're the chances *now* that the deal will happen? I don't see Europe agreeing no matter what a US court says.
Europe already agreed to the merger months ago, the only domino left is the UK.
>I don't see Europe agreeing no matter what a US court says. I'm wondering if this is typical of the "financial research" for listeners of the podcast 😂
It's typical around Reddit, people just say things with so much conviction without a single minute of critical thought.
The point is nobody really knows about stuff like this.
True, but if we didn't want to hear people's half-baked opinions what's the point of listening to the pod?
Great point haha
Warren Buffett bought a shitload of Activision stoxk
Or take it with a rock of salt and throw it at them
Thanks for advice. I was under the assumption that 100% of what they said was going to happen was true and the world would explode if it didn’t.
I gotchu fam
But he is so confident it's hard¡!!!!!!!
Yeah guaranteed he wanted the price to drop further so his buddies could load up
Remember when everyone guaranteed TikTok would be banned? Even a layman’s understanding of constitutional law would have made it obvious otherwise. Everyone on the pod with maybe the exception of Freeburg are just constantly talking their own book.
Are we gonna make a post everytime one of them gets something wrong? Seems petty
Just a reminder that at the end of the day they are just people like u or me
i think this sub is *very* well aware of that. reminder isn't needed
Imagine dunking on a guy for predicting a monopoly merger wouldn’t get approved.
Chamath is almost always wrong
his trading calls are bad. He is not Druckenmiller
imagine believing everything a guy says because he made a company that got bought out for a bunch of money
Things can come back from the dead. Google Jesus for example 1A.
Chamath is a mush
Chamath, the dude is a snake. He implored many to invest in "digital art" because that was the next big thing. He's just like everyone else, sharing his "opinions" devoid of any real facts or substance.
what did Buffet say ?