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Business Attorney on Nvidia buying ARM & Microsoft buying Activision (Telegrams for Guests) (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-19 02:14:53
Edited:
2022-01-19 03:08:59
Imported:
2022-04

Content

Broken Silicon's next guest will be Business Attorney Richard Hoeg, a busy man who was kind enough to take a couple hours of his valuable time to record an episode for you all.

We will be heavily discussing the legality of Nvidia attempting to buy ARM, Activision-Blizzard's recent woes, Microsoft buying Activision-Blizzard, AMD buying Xilinx, and other legality questions you guys submit!


You have a little less than 24 hours from now (till 1/19/22 US Central Afternoon) to submit your questions.  Sorry for the short notice, but he is a busy man!  Don't miss this opportunity to ask an expert legal questions about things going on in this industry!


https://hoeglaw.com/about/richard-hoeg/

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2021/12/ftc-sues-block-40-billion-semiconductor-chip-merger

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/eu-regulators-pause-investigation-into-nvidia-arm-deal-2021-12-06/

https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for-40-billion-creating-worlds-premier-computing-company-for-the-age-of-ai

https://semiwiki.com/ip/arm/292037-three-important-questions-about-nvidia-acquiring-arm-answered/

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/business/microsoft-activision-blizzard.html

https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/18/22889258/microsoft-activision-blizzard-xbox-acquisition-call-of-duty-overwatch

https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded-revolution/article/21145996/xilinx-amd-agrees-to-buy-xilinx-for-35-billion-in-drive-to-diversify?gclid=CjwKCAiA55mPBhBOEiwANmzoQuoL-lHN0A8caxpyFH8_Rvu5j5r4TBOSYKuG9t9w-XbRCHl2qCOk1hoCErYQAvD_BwE

Comments

Alex

(This is a non Microsoft/nvidia question) but still poignant If the Nvidia deal drops through it'll mostly likely be due to the fierce opposition but looking to the likes of Google and Facebook, apple, do anti-monopoly courts really have that much power? Looking at the recent days in court and investigations into the likes of apple, Facebook, Google for anticonsumer monopoly practices the courts seem reluctant to do anything about these ever growing behemoths (despite you could argue they OBVIOUSLY should)

Tick Dickler

Rick, thanks for coming on, love your stuff. What would you say is the main thing distinguishing the Nvidia/Arm deal with the Microsoft/Activision, and why the FTC is blocking one, but (presumably) not the other, especially given the will-they / won’t-they romantic tension between Microsoft and the Sherman Antitrust Act?

Timo H

Whats current US court stake on monopolies.... in 70s they dismantled many oil giants but now google and FB court hearings have continued for long.... what worries me is in tech, startup investing and whole structure is geared towards creating and feeding giant corporations (startups created in spirit to be sold later to giant corporation like google or facebook), so are they willing to do dismantling? In china, economic reasons forced Evergrande restructuring, could that happen here and not just big taxpayer bailout?

Anonymous

There was recent news that Meta (previously Facebook) has acquired a lense company ImagineOptix a company that Valve has heavily invested in for their next gen headset. How do you think Valve can deal with this? And more recently there has been news that the Federal government is investigating anti competitive behavior of meta. How far do you think this can go? Will anything be done to prevent the Zuck from making Sword Art Online a reality??

Cleansweep

Hi Tom and Richard... Since the DOJ and FTC are apparently going to go over merger rules for digital markets, what sort of changes would **you** like to see? Both on the legal front and in terms of how they handle IP/consumer data/etc...

Swiggles

Other than the very obvious monopolistic look at the situation on what basis do you determine if something is legal or not to do something is it intuition or what are some things that you can put an objective terms to basically say this is why they can't do it not just because it doesn't look good

Anonymous

did the Activision scandal allow Microsoft to Buy Activision below it's value? the scandal brought Activision valuation from 75B to 45B. had the deal been struck in February 2021, would Microsoft have paid >100B for it? this puts Phil Spencer Activision statements in a different light as well

Anonymous

Hi Tom and Richard. With this acquisition, there has been a lot of 'fans' of Xbox, Microsoft and Gamepass pushing the theory that Microsoft will be locking game down to only PC/Xbox related platforms. Isn't this contrary to shareholder logic? Maximum dollars in the minimum amount of time? When you are a branded company and directly competing with another similar brand, you want people to follow you and buy your products, but when you are a multibillion dollar company with a few dozen brands, you want everyone to buy all your brands. Am I wrong in this? Would it really be in the shareholders interest to lock games to the PC/Xbox platform for even the tiniest amount of time and risk "losing" money in that Quarter? Now that games cost tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to produce, any thoughts on how they will pay all of these developers for games pushed to gamepass and no one buying them on the PC/Xbox platform? This is especially bad if it becomes an 'exclusive' as there will be zero income to pay the devs for any owned studio. Will it be tiered GamePass levels, then add on Mobile like purchases for every game?

B. Fish

Hi Tom & Richard. Can you explain the regulatory process for M&A in the tech space? Can you do due diligence beforehand or do they review it after the deal is struck? Is there a set formula or is it arbitrary? I could understand that AMD acquiring Xilinx had less regulatory concerns than Nvidia acquiring ARM (especially given the relative deal size) but what factors do regulators look at?

Anonymous

Hey Tom. No question here mate just some appreciation and flattery from sunny NZ. A couple of years ago I had no idea about any of this stuff and I was an Intel and Nvidea guy purely because that was what I though people did... now my knowledge is ten fold and I find it riveting the information and the business aspect about the industry which I think you cover very simply and thoroughly! Big love for the channel and all that you do!

Anonymous
>>76026237

Its a great question and I wonder if there is a quantifiable equation that can pinpoint when sony players may consider switching to Xbox when it comes to exclusives and some triple A games? I do consider Sony to still be way ahead in the single player narrative genre mainly due to insomniac, guerrilla and naughty dog, possibly housemarque but who knows... what if Microsoft turn Activision around that have some incredible studios and push them to make new Ip...

Anonymous
>>76026237

If MS did introduce a new IP that was a time limited exclusive (they will never have a real exclusive again due to PC) to MS products, I would either wait it out OR use my PC OR review what the new Series X 2023 model brings to the table and buy it. If it is a single game or three, I'm more likely to wait. I have so many games to play, I can't catch up. Currently playing Dragon Age Inquisition to at least get 1 game from the line under my belt before the DA 4 drops. This is in between Destiny 2 content, COD-Coldwar Zombies and other games like upcoming Forspoken, Horizon Forbidden West, etc.

Anonymous

Damn I think I'm too late but would love to hear thoughts on right to repair and how this will evolve and the closed ecosystem Operating Systems are moving (windows) to or already have (apple, Google) .

Timo H

Hi Tom and guest, not sure if this question can make it to this episode... Heated discussion of should Intel get eg US subsidies or EU funding for their newest fabs, in reason for "national security". But from legal and competition standpoint, what is take on this, supporting one company over others not getting it? Free market shouldnt do this or then be honest about it. Especially supporting already big companies raises eyebrows, like with Microsoft buying Activision Blizzard, changing competition, fewer players in that playing field. (my question concerns producing chips to totally 3rd party companies competing with consumer and B2B market buying these chips and products, be it used in datacenter to offer service for companies and people or assembled into retail gaming gpu/cpu to be sold in free retail market)