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Cloudflare S-1

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241–250 of 366 posts

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#241
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not parent, but probably. If they weren't legal, there wouldn't be an issue: Cloudflare complying with the law to block illegal websites would be a non-story.

Cloudflare making the decision not to serve specific customers in a legal fashion that does not discriminate against any protected groups is a non-story as well. You don't often see private businesses making decisions like this on the front page of the new york times, but this one is a hot topic. They have no social, moral, or ethical obligation to serve these customers, and one's disagreement with that does not mean…

Cloudflare is incorporated in California where political affiliation actually is a protected class.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#242
post #74
post #62

Here's the meat and potatoes: > We have experienced significant growth, with our revenue increasing from $84.8 million in 2016 to $134.9 million in 2017 and to $192.7 million in 2018, increases of 59% and 43%, respectively. As we continue to invest in our business, we have incurred net losses of $17.3 million, $10.7 million, and $87.2 million for 2016, 2017, and 2018, respectively. For the six months ended June 30, 2…

What the heck happened to their OpEx in 2018?! They went from growing at 60% YoY in 2017 with an 8% Operating Loss, to growing 43% YoY with an Operating Loss of 44%. To put it another way, in 2018 they grew their revenue 40% (+$58m) and grew expenses 100% (+$115m). I mean, apparently they raised a huge round and felt the need to increase spending massively. And then saw slowing growth as a response? Was there a massi…

They explain the huge changes in Operating Expenses here: https://wallmine.com/doc/edgar/0001477333/000119312519222176... It doesn't go into much detail but breaks them down nicely. Disclaimer: I added the next two highlights too

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#244
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…

I agree with all of that, but the other important thing (at least to me as an investor) is their 51% growth over two years (with 77% gross margin). You can have the best product, but if you're not actually growing and profitable then as much as I like the company or the product I'll put my investment dollars elsewhere.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#245
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at least prior to 2003 there was a strong incentive to prefer gains from stock sale since it could get long term capital gain tax rates (15% now, 20% at the time) vs. dividends which would be taxed as normal income. Since then however, qualified dividends are taxed the same as long term capital gains.

There's more to it than that. In order to pay dividends, you have to pay corporate tax before you can pay out the dividends. And that is almost 40% on the top end. So the effective tax of qualified dividends is more like 60%. Alternatively, if you can stash money overseas in tax free accounts or invest the money back into the business to avoid taxes, then you only have the long term capital gains tax.

"After the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, on December 20, 2017, the corporate tax rate has been changed to a flat 21% starting January 1, 2018"

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#246
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it's just in my head, but it feels like the first tech IPO in several years where there actually seems to be a viable business model.

How about Slack, PagerDuty, Zoom, Crowdstrike, or Pinterest? These were all in the last few months.

Exactly - relatively little technical depth.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#247
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…

>We estimate that we operate within 100 milliseconds of 98% of the Internet-connected population in the developed world,

Am I missing something here? For Reference; A one way New York to Hong Kong connection takes roughly 110ms.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#248
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think whether "hate speech" falls into that category is a more complicated question, mostly because the term can be applied so broadly, but a handful of specific things have been illegal enough to get pulled from the public internet by law enforcement from the beginning, and I think it's naive to suggest that we don't need a category like that at all . Also, it doesn't require man-in-the-middle attacks or weakening…

That's fair, it would be very easy and appropriate for someone to monitor HN for example.

I don't think the worry is that Cloudflare is helping police public websites, it's that they have the ability to police private ones that use their services. Their stance of proactively helping to police sites (instead of merely responding to warrants) makes the slope they are on very slippery. Would they be willing to decrypt traffic from a certain IP address to a private site if that same IP was used to post something violent on 8chan? Is that acceptable? Those are tough questions for sure, and ones best decided by a judge and not someone in the private sector.

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#249
post #247
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…

>We estimate that we operate within 100 milliseconds of 98% of the Internet-connected population in the developed world, Am I missing something here? For Reference; A one way New York to Hong Kong connection takes roughly 110ms.

I'm assuming User -> Cloudflare, not User -> Cloudflare -> Endpoint

Re: Cloudflare S-1

#250
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS for sites protected by cloudflare are on cloudflare's DNS afaik.

Right but there are plenty of other options for DNS providers.

There are... but as CF correlates to a significant portion of internet traffic and DNS lookups, it's not like the original point is invalid.
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