Adobe announced Firefly, a family of creative generative AI models coming to Adobe products. The integration with Creative Suite and responsible generative AI is what makes it potentially very interesting. I also like that it’s positioned (similarly to GitHub’s Copilot) as a productivity tool and not a substitute for creators. For more context, see this thread by Sudharshan and another one by Linus with mind-blowing examples.

Bloomberg reports (see the Google cache version without the paywall) that the United States Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust lawsuit seeking to block Adobe’s $20 billion acquisition of Figma. A case is expected to be filed as soon as next month. ​“The antitrust division is concerned the deal — one of the largest takeovers of a private software maker — would reduce options for design software used by creative professionals.”

Nilay Patel from The Verge interviews Dylan Field for the Decoder podcast. It’s the longest and sharpest interview since the acquisition — an absolute must-read. ​“So I wanted to talk to Dylan about the deal, why he’s doing it, how he made the decision to sell, and what things he can do as part of Adobe that he couldn’t do as an independent company. Dylan’s also a pretty expansive thinker, so after we talked about his company getting the ​“fuck you” money from Adobe, we talked about making VR Figma for the metaverse and AGI, which is artificial general intelligence, or the kind of AI that can fully think for itself.”

“The Justice Department is preparing to open an in-depth investigation of Adobe’s $20 billion takeover of design collaboration company Figma, according to four people with knowledge of the matter and a document viewed by POLITICO.”

What a dumpster fire. It seems to be Pantone’s decision, but both companies look awful now.

In this CNBC interview, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen shares his thoughts on the company’s plans to acquire Figma and innovation in a hybrid work environment.

A short thread of a few hints on the future of Figma from the Adobe Max conference.

One of the most interesting takes on the acquisition I’ve read so far. Wenting Zhang left Adobe over a year ago, but before that she spent 1.5 years working on Adobe XD and 5 years on Adobe Fonts (ex-Typekit). While as an ADBE investor she has a clear bias about the price, her observation about the org chart oddity is really interesting.

On this episode of the Futurum Tech Webcast – Interview Series, the host Daniel Newman is joined by Ashley Still, Senior Vice President of Digital Media/​Marketing, Strategy & Partnerships for Adobe, to take a look at Adobe’s acquisition of Figma.

Casey Newton interviews Dylan Field about antitrust issues, keeping control of his product road map, and whatever DALL‑E and other AI tools might mean for the future of design.

The Wall Street Journal gathered thoughts and concerns on the deal from folks in the industry, including Scott Belsky, Fons Mans, and Yuhki Yamashita.

Matt Stoller: ​“My instinct is that this merger is illegal and that it will be blocked or abandoned. But I’m not 100% sure, as there are also technical issues here that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. But even within the merging parties, there is genuine concern about whether this merger will close. Internally, Adobe executives are already telling employees not to write anything down about the merger for fear it will be found by government investigators.”

During a VC job interview in 2018, Kyle Harrison built a model with Figma becoming a $19B company in 2025. His analysis was called ​“unrealistic”. Good thread on compounding growth, and there is a deeper dive in his newsletter.

Rafa from Layout FM podcast shares his thoughts and predictions after the acquisition. Also, listen to his podcast episode on this topic.

Karri Saarinen, cofounder and CEO of Linear: ​“Adobe missed the one of the largest transformations in the design industry and lost the product designers for over a decade. Spending $20B on Figma is their ticket back in and hopefully evolving their thinking from the ​“software in a box” model.” Also love his take on Sketch ​“building a tool for a designer vs. building a tool for teams”.

A good summary of topics discussed at the Figma All-Hands call on September 16th.

Dann Petty hosted an open chat about Figma’s acquisition with Scott Belsky from Adobe.

Nice thread from Nathan Barry, founder of Convertkit, on Figma’s dominance.

Great point by Wendy Johansson on a positive side effect of this deal.

MDS with another take on Figma/​Adobe: ​“The magic happens in the details and typically in things that you didn’t plan for”.