I am curious why you used the mysterious L in your comment instead of referring to Lucent by name? None of what you wrote was libelous. For people not around at the time it will not be obvious who you are referring to. As a result only the "cool older kids" know who L is and it makes it hard for newcomers to learn about the history of the industry. Personally I do not think hacker news comments should be written in such a way as to reinforce boundaries and segregate "people in the know" from the unwashed masses.
Because it doesn't really matter which company L was: the point applies across markets. When you finance all of your sales with only the products you make as collateral, market failures come easily.
For anyone interested in learning more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucent#History