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Cloudflare S-1

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Re: Cloudflare S-1

#161

Post by mschuster91 »

groundlogic wrote: post #72
dsl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technical fundamentals matter. Centralization of the entire internet behind a single entity is a _bad_ thing for people who care about technical fundamentals.

Yeah, from a citizen perspective I agree. C'est la vie. Our governments need to work against this via legislation. It should not be up to Matthew Prince to decide who to block. He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way.

> He has demonstrated his inability to function as censor in a very visible (and frankly embarassing) way.

How? There have been exactly two cases of "censorship", and that is the Daily Stormer and 8chan. One is an utterly vile peddler of antisemitism (literally named after a Nazi paper) and conspiracy theory, and one was linked to at least three terroristic attacks. If it were not white supremacists but Islamists, it would be closed down in an instant and no one would bat an eye.

If anything, Cloudflare seriously lacks (like Facebook and Twitter) policing their customer base.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#162

Post by cromulent »

paggle wrote: post #142
spullara wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?s=y&id=100... 100-400ms. Close enough.

400ms must be when you're 5 minutes from falling asleep. Cloudflare said 300-400ms when it's really 100-400ms, effectively lying by 3x. It's not material to their business but still disgusting.

They may not be lying, but simply have a different source.

For example:

300ms : https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28728-memory-recall-w...

200ms : https://www.nature.com/news/2000/001130/full/news001130-3.ht...

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#163

Post by henryfjordan »

_bxg1 wrote: post #149
kd3 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that is where it always starts. Think of the children. Childporn. Terrorism. Until it becomes "hate speech" and whatever else the masters dictate.

Advocation of violence has been unprotected speech since 1940. Have we been living in a dystopia this whole time? People who intentionally oversimplify free-speech endanger it, just like people who intentionally oversimplify capitalism endanger it. There is no hardline ideal, in any context, that works. Ideas must be flexible to the real world, or perish.

It's not that hate speech and violent rhetoric should be tolerated, it's that using the fact that some people say bad things does not justify monitoring all of the internet.

Free speech is a right in the US and having an overlord listening to everything you say is obviously dampening on that right.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#164

Post by qeternity »

AznHisoka wrote: post #147
whatshisface wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just pay a dividend? That's what stocks are supposed to be, shares of ownership in legitimately valuable enterprises with return on investment.

I agree, but the greater fool theory and financial engineering (ie buybacks) will lead to greater profits for stockholders in the long run.

Buybacks are a more tax efficient vehicle for returning capital to shareholders.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#165

Post by leesalminen »

the_duke wrote: post #127
ignoramous wrote: post #122

Cloudflare has excellent offerings in the networking space, their tech stack seems solid. The customer base seems loyal: Once you're a customer, free or paid, there's very little reason to move out. Their revenue has been growing 43% and 59% for past 2 years: The business side of things seem to be kicking along at a good pace. They seemed to have figured out a perfect balance at offering services to freelancers, to s…

They already are in the video streaming business. ;) https://www.cloudflare.com/products/cloudflare-stream/

And we’ve been very happy with their Stream product for about 6 months now. No complaints.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#166

Post by twblalock »

whatshisface wrote: post #136
erikig wrote: post #129

Both CloudFlare and Zoom are pretty great products and as much as I applaud their team's IPOs, I'm worried that the vagaries of being a public company will result in the GOOG syndrome. That's where a company with a great product is forced to expand every quarter to the point that it becomes a frankenstein-ish hulking version of itself.

Why not just pay a dividend? That's what stocks are supposed to be, shares of ownership in legitimately valuable enterprises with return on investment.

Growth will also give return on investment. I'd rather see Cloudflare invest in growth and R&D than give a dividend. They are nowhere near finished growing.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#167

Post by big_chungus »

cm2187 wrote: post #32

It’s odd to have these IPOs in the middle of August, in the middle of a super volatile market. I can’t help thinking that there must be a sense of urgency, based on the perception that this is the last opportunity before a bear market and much more modest (realistic?) valuations.

This is just about when kids go back to school. You see fewer IPOs over the summer because the bankers are all off in houses in the Hamptons or Nantucket. Your underwriters may not want to IPO until you get back, and there will be fewer people to buy your shares.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#168

Post by perspective1 »

cremp wrote: post #13

> We have a history of net losses and may not be able to achieve or sustain profitability in the future. I never got this... Why go public if you literally say you won't make money? Who would buy stock in something that will not return a positive? Are they starving for money and hope some public trading gets them a boost? Edit: It seems to be following the same pattern as the other tech IPOs recently, just to cash ou…

"Why go public if you literally say you won't make money?" Because you can get rewarded heavily for it.

They have $88 million in working capital as of June 30, 2019 and are on track to lose another $40 million before the end of the year, so they need more capital. With $330 million carrying value of preferred stock, I think it's go public, somehow issue 100s of millions of dollars in debt or die.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#169

Post by soup10 »

rvz wrote: post #83

> Today, our network spans 193 cities in over 90 countries and interconnects with over 8,000 networks globally, including major ISPs, public cloud providers, SaaS services, and enterprises. We estimate that we operate within 100 milliseconds of 98% of the Internet-connected population in the developed world, and 93% of the Internet-connected population globally (for context, the blink of an eye is 300-400 millisecond…

Only issue is that they don't have that much revenue compared to the amount of interest there will be in their stock so its going to turn into a speculation vehicle.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#170

Post by michaelt »

a13n wrote: post #141
whatshisface wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just pay a dividend? That's what stocks are supposed to be, shares of ownership in legitimately valuable enterprises with return on investment.

The owners will make more money if they double the company's value than spend their profits on a 5% dividend to shareholders. Simple capitalism at work.

...but less money if Google spends the 5% on Google Plus or an Google Messaging Platform No.8 and doesn't double the company's value.
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