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IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

reuters.com

141–150 of 391 posts

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#141
I wonder if this may mean we will see the Terraform dogmatic approach to declining to implement much requested functionality in the name of "it doesn't fit our ideals" go by the wayside. I hope so, otherwise, OpenTofu here I come; or well, I'm sure someone's got a ML infra tool in the works by now.

I always have mixed feelings when a software company like this grabs their bag and leaves the community that helped build them, high and dry; good for them but still bad for everyone else nine out of ten times.

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#142
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hashicorp had a $14 billion IPO in Dec 2021 and was trading at ~$4.7 billion right before the acquisition announcement. At that point it doesn't matter what the company or its founders want or what their long term vision is. Shareholders are in charge and heads are going to roll if the price doesn't get back up quick by any means necessary.

Yet another example of why I think it's a mistake to take your company public. If I put in the work to build up a successful business, no way would I ever let it be turned into a machine that ignores long term health for the sake of making the stock price go up.

If companies didn’t go public regular people would not be able to invest in innovation. As much as people hate it, public markets democratize access to investments

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#143

If this accelerates migration away from Terraform towards a standard, open, IaC platform, then it's a good thing. Something like the JSON version of Terraform that can be generated by different tools, but an open standard instead. Be "interesting" to see what happens to the recently-renamed Terraform Cloud (now Hashicorp Cloud Platform Terraform :eyeroll:) Edited to add: I'm guessing the feature I want added to the t…

> Something like the JSON version of Terraform that can be generated by different tools, but an open standard instead.

God, please no. The worst thing about all these tools is the terrible formats they keep choosing.

Given the directions we’ve (“cutting edge” programmers and server ops folks) chosen to go instead, leaving XML behind was a big mistake.

I’d prefer something better, but yaml and json are so terrible that going back to xml would be an improvement.

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#144
post #49

Well, it was nice while it lasted! HashiCorp always felt like a company made by actual engineers, not "bean counters". Now it will just be another cog in the IBM machine, slowly grinding it down, removing everything attractive, just like RedHat and CentOS. Hopefully this will create a new wave off innovation, and someone will create something to replace the monopoly on IaC that IBM now owns.

i can only speak to the early days (joined around 11 folks), but the engineers then were top tier and hungry to build cool shit. A few years later (as an outsider) seemed innovation had slowed substantially. i still know there are great folks there, but has felt like HashiCorp’s focus lately has been packaging up all their tools into a cohesive all-in-one solution (this was actually Atlas in the early days) and figuring out their story around service lifecycle with experiments like Waypoint (Otto in the early days). IBM acquisition is likely best outcome.

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#147
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand people’s beef with IBM. They have been responsible for incredible R&D within computing. I even LIKE redhat/fedora! HashiCorp had already been sold out since waaaay before this acquisition and I also don’t understand why their engineers are seen as “special”…

People's beef here with IBM is they don't make shiny phones and laptops and don't create hip jobs where you're paid 500k+ to "change the world" by selling ads or making the 69th messaging app. They just focus on tried and tested boring SW that big businesses find useful and that's not popular on HN which is more startup and disruption focused.

My beef with IBM as someone who worked for a company they acquired is that they would interfere with active deals that I was working on, force us to stand down while IBM tried to sell some other bullshit, then finally “allow us” to follow up with the customer once it’s too late, and the customer decided to move on to something else. Repeatedly.

Fuck IBM.

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People's beef here with IBM is they don't make shiny phones and laptops and don't create hip jobs where you're paid 500k+ to "change the world" by selling ads or making the 69th messaging app. They just focus on tried and tested boring SW that big businesses find useful and that's not popular on HN which is more startup and disruption focused.

You have obviously never been the victim of IBMs consulting arm. I caution anyone against buying anything IBM now. Absolute nightmare to work with.

or just work anywhere within IBM

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#149
post #59
post #2

> IBM will pay $35 per share for HashiCorp, a 42.6% premium to Monday's closing price Is that an insane premium or what?

It was a 63% premium when IBM bought Red Hat. Sadly I'd sold my RSUs about 2 days before :-(

Same, but with ESPP stock, and it was a few months earlier. Ouch.

Re: IBM to buy HashiCorp in $6.4B deal

#150

Terrible news. New startups should be buying IBM. Not the other way around.

Like how Google bought Doubleclick and definitely not the other way around?

Heh, interesting example because DoubleClick kinda did take over Google.
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