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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?

#251

Post by habosa »

In every big transaction,” said Leech, “there is a magic moment during which a man has surrendered a treasure, and during which the man who is due to receive it has not yet done so. An alert lawyer will make that moment his own, possessing the treasure for a magic microsecond, taking a little of it, passing it on. If the man who is to receive the treasure is unused to wealth, has an inferiority complex and shapeless feelings of guilt, as most people do, the lawyer can often take as much as half the bundle, and still receive the recipient’s blubbering thanks.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

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

#252

Post by s-c-p »

LatteLazy wrote: post #67

If interest rates are 10%, you can borrow $1000 and buy a company that generates a $100 dividend and be cash neutral. Make sense? Now if interest rates drop to 1% you can spend $10k on the same company, get the same $100 and pay your loan. So the value of a company that reliably generates $100 can change by a factor of 10 when interest rates change. Right now, the real interest rate is basically zero. So to determine…

I don't get it, I am new to finance, what concepts should I learn before I can understand your comment?

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

#253

Post by Schroedingersat »

ChrisClark wrote: post #40
smcl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What scam companies are worth trillions?

He thinks Tesla is a complete scam for one thing... Probably not a good idea to spend time on any of his comments.

Tesla is a surveillance company. Their product isn't a car in the traditional sense, it's a worldwide video feed of public roads, and complete surveillance of the people with the highest disposable income along with a variety of ways of coercing them into shelling out for upgrades every time they come up with a new shiny.

So don't compare them with toyota, compare them with apple and it makes a lot more sense. All the top tech companies work the same way. Vendor and ecosystem lockin, forced depreciation of old products that aren't currently extracting profit, and selling surveillance.

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

#254

Post by dash2 »

cormacrelf wrote: post #223
snowwrestler wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this premise is correct; I don’t know of any evidence that courts accord any special status to Docusign’d documents, over other ways of electronically signing contracts. The concept doesn’t even make sense to me… Docusign is not attesting to the contracts they manage. They’re not an automated notary. They’re just facilitating something that anyone can do themselves: electronically sign a contract. There…

I haven't read all the legislation in the world on this, but DocuSign has. They have been summarising legislation into their knowledge base, and proudly showing off claims that they satisfy the requirements on their country-specific homepages. For example their page on Australian laws is here https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/austra... , and it summarises (almost verbatim) the Electronic Transacti…

This is a lot of legal knowledge. But not $50bn worth. I'm guessing the real story is DocuSign is trying to worm its way into being a de facto monopoly, maybe by paying enough lobbyists, and the $50bn is the bet that they'll be successful. Multiplied up a bit by the fact that we've been living in a free-money world, where castles in the air get pick-a-number valuations.

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

#255

Post by Rastonbury »

88913527 wrote: post #175
snowwrestler wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think this premise is correct; I don’t know of any evidence that courts accord any special status to Docusign’d documents, over other ways of electronically signing contracts. The concept doesn’t even make sense to me… Docusign is not attesting to the contracts they manage. They’re not an automated notary. They’re just facilitating something that anyone can do themselves: electronically sign a contract. There…

I'm almost afraid to ask since it's such a given, but do employees actually get fired for choosing the wrong vendor? I've heard it repeated in quite a few contexts, and I'm unsure if I should interpret it literally. At worst, I would expect the executive has a slightly tarnished reputation for picking what ended up being a bad partner.

Yes for some products they might not get fired but their professional reputations are ruined. To be honest, I've seen execs get replaced (shuffled internally downward) after bad projects (large delays, overbudget). For failures in implementations in things like ERP upgrades/migrations which are multiyear and go into double digit millions, these are F500-1000 companies so executives are known failures can become public or even litigated. No one wants to be the CTO/CFO who went for a risky vendor and have it blow up. There is nothing to gain and much to lose cause failures are pretty rare but not unheard of.

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

#256

Post by necovek »

namibj wrote: post #232
cormacrelf wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read all the legislation in the world on this, but DocuSign has. They have been summarising legislation into their knowledge base, and proudly showing off claims that they satisfy the requirements on their country-specific homepages. For example their page on Australian laws is here https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/austra... , and it summarises (almost verbatim) the Electronic Transacti…

Germany differentiates between "Schriftform" and "Textform". The former is "paper, hand signed" or "qualifizierte elektronische Signatur" (qualified electronic signature), the latter "basically SMS and up" (notably excluding voice, AFAIK even if recorded). This has (just searched for a link) been turned into EU law under the term "eIDAS Regulation" [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_electronic_signatur…

Qualified electronic signatures are a bit stronger than "SMS and up": from your own Wikipedia link, "a qualified electronic signature is an advanced electronic signature with a qualified digital certificate that has been created by a qualified signature creation device (QSCD)". It mentions 3 requirements right after that sentence (like "data used to create the signature is under the sole control of the signatory").

As such, DocuSign is unlikely to be valid as a qualified electronic signature in Germany or other European countries.

But in all of the contractual law ever present in the world, as long as you do not dispute that it's your signature, or there are witnesses to you agreeing to a contract (even verbal ones), a contract would hold as if signed by you.

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

#257

Post by necovek »

namibj wrote: post #232
cormacrelf wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read all the legislation in the world on this, but DocuSign has. They have been summarising legislation into their knowledge base, and proudly showing off claims that they satisfy the requirements on their country-specific homepages. For example their page on Australian laws is here https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/austra... , and it summarises (almost verbatim) the Electronic Transacti…

Germany differentiates between "Schriftform" and "Textform". The former is "paper, hand signed" or "qualifizierte elektronische Signatur" (qualified electronic signature), the latter "basically SMS and up" (notably excluding voice, AFAIK even if recorded). This has (just searched for a link) been turned into EU law under the term "eIDAS Regulation" [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_electronic_signatur…

> As such, DocuSign is unlikely to be valid as a qualified electronic signature in Germany or other European countries.

I think this confirms my guess above: https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/electronic-signature/d...

(But they are making it vague on purpose instead of just stating in plain words)

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

#258

Post by necovek »

necovek wrote: post #256
namibj wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany differentiates between "Schriftform" and "Textform". The former is "paper, hand signed" or "qualifizierte elektronische Signatur" (qualified electronic signature), the latter "basically SMS and up" (notably excluding voice, AFAIK even if recorded). This has (just searched for a link) been turned into EU law under the term "eIDAS Regulation" [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_electronic_signatur…

Qualified electronic signatures are a bit stronger than "SMS and up": from your own Wikipedia link, "a qualified electronic signature is an advanced electronic signature with a qualified digital certificate that has been created by a qualified signature creation device (QSCD)". It mentions 3 requirements right after that sentence (like "data used to create the signature is under the sole control of the signatory"). A…

This page confirms it isn't: https://www.docusign.com/how-it-works/legality/global/german...

> ...the use of electronic signatures or requires that the “written form” be used (which requires use of a qualified electronic signature), then any non-qualified electronic signature may be used.

As such, DocuSign is an "electronic signature", but not a qualified electronic signature. This seems to be defined directly in eIDAS, so it probably applies to most of EU countries, and countries on the path to joining the EU.

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

#259

Post by bbarn »

niftylettuce wrote: post #9

Working on an open source alternative, email me at niftylettuce@gmail.com if you want to try the beta. We're the team behind https://forwardemail.net Everything 100% transparent, open-source, privacy-focused, with fair pricing

Can I ask how this is an alternative to DocuSign? I like what your product is offering - actually something I've considered as I use a built in forwarder from namecheap and it's sometimes painfully slow, but DocuSign's big business is in electronic signing of documents, right? The only times I've had to use it was buying a house and once signing an offer letter for a job.

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

#260

Post by detaro »

necovek wrote: post #256
namibj wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany differentiates between "Schriftform" and "Textform". The former is "paper, hand signed" or "qualifizierte elektronische Signatur" (qualified electronic signature), the latter "basically SMS and up" (notably excluding voice, AFAIK even if recorded). This has (just searched for a link) been turned into EU law under the term "eIDAS Regulation" [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_electronic_signatur…

Qualified electronic signatures are a bit stronger than "SMS and up": from your own Wikipedia link, "a qualified electronic signature is an advanced electronic signature with a qualified digital certificate that has been created by a qualified signature creation device (QSCD)". It mentions 3 requirements right after that sentence (like "data used to create the signature is under the sole control of the signatory"). A…

You misread that: "SMS and up" is the description for Textform = the variant that doesn't require a qualified electronic signature.
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