Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B • Hacker News Board

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#191

Post by OkGoDoIt » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:33 AM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #50

I hope this gives rise to another, smaller viable party outside of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Perhaps I'm jaded, perhaps hopelessly biased - but I can only see this as a net negative. Okta's open source packages receive a pitiful amount of attention (for example: https://github.com/okta/okta-oidc-js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%... ) with forks almost becoming a requirement. Auth0 by contrast has been "on the ball" for…

I used to work on the Okta team that made those libraries. We were a tiny team with not nearly enough people.

As far as I could tell, Okta is a sales company. The salespeople got the fancy events, the high floors with nice views, all the budget. On my orientation day it was almost entirely sales people and only one other engineer. Also the pay was laughable compared to any of the other jobs I’ve had before or since. I didn’t even stay there 5 months, what a shit show.

Another fun story from there: I was literally the only Windows-experienced developer in the company at the time, I was sometimes approached by unrelated teams that had an issue getting something to work on Windows asking for help. I would happily help where I could, but then I got chewed out by my manager and director for doing so.

Enterprise customers are the only ones that mattered, and engineers were expected to keep our heads down and implement what was asked and nothing more.

It’s a sad day for Auth0. I got to know some people who came into Okta via acquisitions and let’s just say it’s not a fun ride.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#192

Post by dataminded » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

I've done a couple of successful Auth0 projects. Okta has always been impossible to work with. Time to find another vendor.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#193

Post by yalogin » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

I wonder why the stock tanker after this is announced. From what I see they are the top 2 players in this space and so an acquisition should be good for business.

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#194

Post by spydum » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #134

nickysielicki wrote: post #104

$6,500,000,000.00 for a company providing authentication APIs? Am I the only person left on earth that hasn't lost his mind?

Enterprise customers with Enterprisey wallets. Edit: Ping Identity might be a good place to invest, they look a bit low right now, and they support cloud and on-prem.

And own huge chunks of the enterprise market (and customers are generally happy at least in my circles).

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#195

Post by sojournerc » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

tpmx wrote: post #155

dyeje wrote: post #10

Does this rise to the level of antitrust scrutiny? Aren't these like the two biggest SSO providers?

I'd think so, but in the US antitrust isn't really much of a thing. I wonder if they have grown large enough in Europe yet...

I'm curious why you think anti-trust isn't a thing in the US...

What do you think of the break-up of Bell Systems? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System

There are also active anti-trust investigations into Google and Facebook.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17/tech/google-antitrust-lawsuit... https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investing/facebook-antitrust-...

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#196

Post by pid_0 » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

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Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#197

Post by ernsheong » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

andrew_ wrote: post #50

I hope this gives rise to another, smaller viable party outside of Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Perhaps I'm jaded, perhaps hopelessly biased - but I can only see this as a net negative. Okta's open source packages receive a pitiful amount of attention (for example: https://github.com/okta/okta-oidc-js/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%... ) with forks almost becoming a requirement. Auth0 by contrast has been "on the ball" for…

There's Ping Identity [1] and Firebase Auth [2], though Firebase is probably not as feature rich as Auth0

[1] https://www.pingidentity.com/ [2] https://firebase.google.com/docs/auth

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#198

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

dataminded wrote: post #192

I've done a couple of successful Auth0 projects. Okta has always been impossible to work with. Time to find another vendor.

[deleted]

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#199

Post by notsureaboutpg » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #104

$6,500,000,000.00 for a company providing authentication APIs? Am I the only person left on earth that hasn't lost his mind?

I'm using a service (Hasura) to build out a backend and all their docs recommend Auth0 as a JWT/authentication service but the pricing is outrageous. I spent 3 days and built a version myself which is just fine and can be changed whenever / however we want.

Google / Facebook / Apple authentication are not hard to implement at all, maybe I'm missing the actual value they add...

Re: Okta to Acquire Auth0 for $6.5B

#200

Post by sojournerc » Thu, Mar 04, 2021, 1:50 AM UTC

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #89

Does anyone else think its a horrible idea to outsource your companies authentication? Where I work we are migrating to Okta, and it blows my mind that anyone thinks it is a good idea.

I'd actually say the opposite.

Any small start-up is not likely to have the expertise to implement auth in a 100% spec compliant, HIPAA certified, SSO compatible manner.

It's not a de-facto BAD-THING to outsource skills outside of the niche of a business, and is likely more secure and thought-out than what would be created otherwise.