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CrowdStrike S-1

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Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#31

Post by tptacek »

chii wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun additional detail: As part of our sales and marketing activities, we sponsor a CrowdStrike-branded professional racing car, which our President and Chief Executive Officer drives in some races at no incremental cost to us and in lieu of us hiring a professional driver. As we do not pay any amounts to our President and Chief Executive Officer under these arrangements, it is not reflected in the above table.

If I was an investor, I would say this is reckless.

Lots of companies sponsor race cars, and Crowdstrike seems to have gotten a co-branding thing out of it (they're now the EDR product for some Formula One teams or something). It's about as reckless or not reckless as any other marketing expense.

Unless you mean the potential for George to meet his fiery doom in an F1 car, in which case, yes, I agree.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#32

Post by p0rkbelly »

cwkoss wrote: post #9

Crowdstrike seems very well-connected politically. The DNC chose to have them forensically examine their hacked servers to the exclusion of the FBI .

They were also on retainer for many republicans. They are an American cybersecurity company.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#33

Post by p0rkbelly »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #13
techntoke wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are the ones who blamed Russia for the DNC hack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CrowdStrike#Russian_hacking_in...

Thank you. Makes much more sense now.

...because they are a billion dollar tech startup, whose end product/widget is security. Why shouldn't it be here? ...Because it's not about Uber-for-X? Or chat? or food Delivery? ... But everything they do is every HN buzzword: ML/AI/BigData/ES/JSON/CLOUD.

They are extreme users of tech and ingesting/processing more data in real-time than most of us can fathom.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#34

Post by monocasa »

tptacek wrote: post #21
monocasa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political connectedness exists on many spectrums other than the usual Red vs Blue. An interesting one you can see from the outside (that might not have anything to do here, it's just an example) is CIA vs NSA. You can see Nancy Pelosi's statements back that look like "we've always been at war with East Asia" and "we've never been at war with East Asia" wrt to the intelligence apparatus depending on which agency screw…

All available evidence from credible sources seems to back up Crowdstrike's attribution. I'm sure you can find a countervailing argument or two from some credible source, but, to say the least, it does not look like Crowdstrike took a flyer on this. I don't think the Russia investigation has thing #1 to do with Crowdstrike's IPO or what their business is like, though. That's much simpler: EDR is the new antivirus, an…

You also have a former UK ambassador saying "the DNC wasn't hacked. I was part of the process of exfiltrating the files from the DNC".

And I think a general willingness to parrot establishment rhetoric is part of why they're as big as they are.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#35

Post by _8j50 »

For the uninitiated: Crowdstrike Falcon is basically the highest quality Endpoint Defense and Response product in the market.

They are not fool proof but I would be extremely surprised if any untargeted malware infected a Crowdstrike enabled device.

They are extremely popular in the market,it's pretty awesome the level of protection they give traditional businesses that don't have large security teams who can't readily adopt to attacker techniques.

They've been spreading themselves a bit thin lately trying to to do things a bit outside of their domain. But as someone that finds it very easy to find fault and criticize, I find almost no bad things to say about their offering (aside from the price tag).

Hope going public won't ruin them. Their threat intel is always a page turner too!

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#36

Post by tptacek »

rossdavidh wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and usually for a pretty straightforward reason: these companies are investing substantial sums of money into buying market share, and, when they (a) win themselves a defensible position in the market and (b) generate enough revenue to prove the market to investors, they can cut back on those expenses and take profits. Meanwhile, investors are looking for growth and, more generally, future profits; nobody's all…

It's always possible to make a semi-plausible argument that money will be made someday. Perhaps that's enough for an angel investor, maybe a VC, but by the time you IPO, you really ought to have demonstrated it. But, not lately.

Isn't this essentially an argument that companies should deliberately slow their growth before an IPO just to demonstrate to skittish investors (all of whom either shouldn't be picking stocks of any sort, or are themselves professional money managers who can read an S1 and a 10K) that they can be profitable without collapsing?

Profits are good, but inability to switch from growth mode to profit-taking mode is probably not the risk that should keep you from investing in Crowdstrike; the volatility of the market they're in and their exposure to technological changes is a much bigger concern.

Crowdstrike isn't like Uber, where the dial from profitable to unprofitable is essentially the question about the business. They're an enterprise software company and the majority of their money goes to sales. We have something like 30 years of experience in how these kinds of companies operate and what's going to happen with their financial engineering.

I'm not saying Crowdstrike isn't risky. They're crazy risky and I wouldn't invest personally! I'm just saying, it's easy to get companies like this confused with consumer-facing unicorn companies whose valuations are derived in part by subsidizing their customers. Crowdstrike is, if anything, infamous for the opposite thing (they're expensive).

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#37

Post by tptacek »

monocasa wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All available evidence from credible sources seems to back up Crowdstrike's attribution. I'm sure you can find a countervailing argument or two from some credible source, but, to say the least, it does not look like Crowdstrike took a flyer on this. I don't think the Russia investigation has thing #1 to do with Crowdstrike's IPO or what their business is like, though. That's much simpler: EDR is the new antivirus, an…

You also have a former UK ambassador saying "the DNC wasn't hacked. I was part of the process of exfiltrating the files from the DNC". And I think a general willingness to parrot establishment rhetoric is part of why they're as big as they are.

Well, if the "former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan" says so, who am I to tell you to stop reading Infowars?

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#38

Post by mason55 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and usually for a pretty straightforward reason: these companies are investing substantial sums of money into buying market share, and, when they (a) win themselves a defensible position in the market and (b) generate enough revenue to prove the market to investors, they can cut back on those expenses and take profits. Meanwhile, investors are looking for growth and, more generally, future profits; nobody's all…

It's always possible to make a semi-plausible argument that money will be made someday. Perhaps that's enough for an angel investor, maybe a VC, but by the time you IPO, you really ought to have demonstrated it. But, not lately.

Why? Why should public markets be the red line?

If you’re not profitable yet then that means there’s lots of room for growth. If companies are going public when there’s still all that room for growth then it means the public gets to share more in the growth.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#39

Post by resters »

cwkoss wrote: post #20
tptacek wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Kurtz is not a Democrat. Crowdstrike is also a giant in this field. I assume the connection is, the DNC wanted to go with a safe, big name.

Crowdstrike's analysis of the DNC servers arguably started national discussion of the "Russiagate" controversy. A tin-foil-hat wearer could interpret their actions as serving whoever has a vested interest in Russiagate.

It’s hard not to draw that conclusion.

Re: CrowdStrike S-1

#40

Post by tptacek »

mason55 wrote: post #38
rossdavidh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always possible to make a semi-plausible argument that money will be made someday. Perhaps that's enough for an angel investor, maybe a VC, but by the time you IPO, you really ought to have demonstrated it. But, not lately.

Why? Why should public markets be the red line? If you’re not profitable yet then that means there’s lots of room for growth. If companies are going public when there’s still all that room for growth then it means the public gets to share more in the growth.

I assume the subtext is: because reliable, growing profits are hard to fake, and there's a broad suspicion that a lot of big tech companies are essentially "fake it 'til you make it" counterfeit businesses.

I think it's a critique that makes sense for some kinds of tech companies and not for others.

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