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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#161

Post by judge2020 »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #139
judge2020 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having an audit log of access (both email and IP address) is extremely useful if someone asks "did this person actually perform the e-signature". You can then perform motions regarding whether their email has compromised and, if needed, go to their ISP for IP assignment records to see if their account (mobile or home internet) was assigned to that IP. Docusign being the source of authority for the validity of the ori…

DocuSign does not have that source of authority exclusively. Competitors also have it.

I agree, competitors like HelloSign and Adobe Sign are pretty feature-complete and would have just as much brand recognition, and do have these same audit log features that specifically help with verifying the authenticity of documents in court. If I had to guess on why people might still choose docusign, it'd be because Docusign was the first on the scene and has the brand recognition - people are going to recognize it more often than if you mention a lower-marketshare competitor like "PandaDoc"[0]. Another reason is probably how the cost difference between competitors is such a low amount of admin overhead that it doesn't matter if you save a few thousand a year in costs or not.

0: https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/22/pandadoc-the-e-document-st...

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#162

Post by bubblethink »

mr_toad wrote: post #130
klipt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems ridiculously insecure for those to be accepted. Given just one signed document, a fraudster could copy and paste your signature into literally any number of other documents.

The whole industry is a farce. Nobody will do anything until after someone abuses it in a high profile case.

Well, there are actual signatures too, but that's just like the CA racket for ssl. Adobe and others just gatekeep it. And any type of key material is quite complex to manage, so it would never get widespread adoption even if it were free.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#163

Post by reilly3000 »

killingtime74 wrote: post #132
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

My guess - DocuSign has a hard to penetrate moat: It's known and accepted in courts. Everything else doesn't really matter. Imagine you're a legal department. You have to choose between DocuSign, which you know the court will accept, or a competitor. DocuSign costs 10x as much as the competitor. But that's nothing compared to the cost of litigation, or worse, the cost of losing litigation. So you will likely choose D…

Which courts? In which jurisdiction? Never heard of this. I’ve only heard of special status being according to government run digital signature schemes

A regular digital document can be called into question in court with some concern for digital manipulation. Chain of custody, cryptographic signing, audit logs, etc help establish vendors as trusted in legal disputes. It’s nothing particular to them, it’s just compliance with UETA and ESign laws as well as state/local standards in the US.

As much as vendors like DocuSign provide UX and infrastructure for document management, they also package an aspect of legal compliance as a service.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#164

Post by sushsjsuauahab »

vkou wrote: post #154
sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government can barely keep a port open or bomb a proper target, and we want to give them control over what is true and what isn't?

The government already has that control for one of the most important bits of 'truth', its called a land registry.

Which itself is underpinned by a complex web of private title insurance companies and real estate lawyers who have to waste time and money attempting to convince a judge of what reality really is.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#165

Post by sushsjsuauahab »

Teever wrote: post #146
sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government can barely keep a port open or bomb a proper target, and we want to give them control over what is true and what isn't?

Would you advocate for the privatization of the entire justice system?

That depends-- have you ever had something stolen from you, which you then reported to police, after which nothing happened?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#166

Post by xiphias2 »

wallacoloo wrote: post #155
xiphias2 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coinbase is overvalued because people don’t understand the difference between Coinbase (which has enourmous fees for guaranteeing a price for selling/buying cryptocurrencies) and Coinbase Pro (which is a market maker with lots of competitors, where you can just create a market order and you will execute the trade with a much more competitive margin). As competitors copy the ease of use (like Strike with a 0 profit on…

AFAIK Coinbase Pro isn’t a market maker, it’s a marketplace . a market maker would be someone who offers to buy/sell some asset for a specific price. for example when i use Coinbase Pro to place an offer to buy 1 Bitcoin for $55000, i’m acting as a market maker. all the same, i agree with you: it’s already cheaper to use Coinbase Pro as an on-ramp to obtain USDC and then trade the USDC on a decentralized exchange tha…

You’re right, I used the wrong word.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#167

Post by lootsauce »

GDC7 wrote: post #6

Oh it's a long story...where to begin? It all started in 2006 when the economy grew at 6.6% in Q3 and the Fed still claimed that not tightening was a great insurance policy. Fast forward: Subprime crisis Bernanke says "subprime is contained" Subprime was not contained Wheels come off in 2008 Everybody runs away like chicken with their heads cut off Everybody goes back to Bernanke asking for solutions Bernanke propose…

My experience is that most people, intelligent, thoughtful people included, simply do not appreciate how absolutely effective the above has been at distorting realty. This is probably due to our collective adjustment reactions to wave after wave of insanity. It has come to the point that we are living in a financial clown world and the show must go on so we are now pretending collectively that it all ok. Like that after school special where nobody talks about the big obvious problem that dad is beating up mom, nope we all just sit at the table for dinner and pretend everything is normal. Problem is most are are like the friend visiting and don’t notice a wit of tension in the household. But just wait, the fury will become evident even to you. So many sit there and wax concerned but try to sound rational. No people, it’s clown world there is no rationality.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#168

Post by zz865 »

antjanus wrote: post #59
codingdave wrote: post #10

> legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal agreement... those are all valid acceptanc…

I really like it -- lots of legal documents I've signed over the past few years are in DocuSign. Which also means that I have easy storage for my _own_ documents. If I log in, I can see the lease I signed 3-4 years ago, the contract I signed last year, etc. etc. Plus, yeah, you get to see if the other party signed, all the appropriate spots for signing are flagged, the entire audit trail of the document. It's super c…

Until it disappears. I tried to look at my job contract from 5.5 years ago and it no longer exists.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#169

Post by reilly3000 »

Certainly the value of transactions that are authorized each month by DocuSign are north of $100B, and they alleviate a substantial about of transactional friction and risk. There is also a network effect in that accessing existing agreements establishes a relationship with all parties to these contracts.

Personally I give little credence to questions about tech valuation. Either it’s rational or irrational, and that is up to each and every investor to decide and literally nobody else.

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