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Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

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Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#21

Post by manquer »

noleary wrote: post #3

This spurred me to look up a list of Google/Alphabet's historical acquisitions. I remembered that YouTube was M&A, of course, but I'd forgotten all about some other companies that Alphabet bought over the years: * Motorola * Nest * DoubleClick * FitBit * Waze * DeepMind * Boston Dynamics Other things I totally forgot existed, like Songza and Picnik, wound up under Alphabet at some point. For some reason, Alphabet doe…

They are not ? Most of your references are more than a decade ago, (alongside Apple) compared to peers like Microsoft they are very much do not have acquisition culture .

Mandiant is only large acquisition in the last 10 years > $1B which is very small stakes in todays VC ecosystem.

Compare that to MS they have bought GitHub, LinkedIn, Activison, Nuance, Zenimax all well over $5B . Combined these alone is $100-120B, MS has also done plenty of mid budget buys too.

Even more B2B/traditional tech like IBM (redhat, Hashicorp etc) or salesforce have been more active too.

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#22

Post by shanemhansen »

noleary wrote: post #3

This spurred me to look up a list of Google/Alphabet's historical acquisitions. I remembered that YouTube was M&A, of course, but I'd forgotten all about some other companies that Alphabet bought over the years: * Motorola * Nest * DoubleClick * FitBit * Waze * DeepMind * Boston Dynamics Other things I totally forgot existed, like Songza and Picnik, wound up under Alphabet at some point. For some reason, Alphabet doe…

Don't forget:

Writely: Google didn't make Google docs.

Android: Google didn't make Android.

Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre.

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#23

Post by gpi »

alberth wrote: post #18

For those that have used Wiz, what makes it so great? It's one of the fastest growing enterprise saas company ever in history. But why?

It covers a lot of ground and integrates with everything under the sun. Once you let the tool loose you need to hire a team to perform the actual discoveries and remediations.

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#27

Post by mschuster91 »

shanemhansen wrote: post #22
noleary wrote: post #3

This spurred me to look up a list of Google/Alphabet's historical acquisitions. I remembered that YouTube was M&A, of course, but I'd forgotten all about some other companies that Alphabet bought over the years: * Motorola * Nest * DoubleClick * FitBit * Waze * DeepMind * Boston Dynamics Other things I totally forgot existed, like Songza and Picnik, wound up under Alphabet at some point. For some reason, Alphabet doe…

Don't forget: Writely: Google didn't make Google docs. Android: Google didn't make Android. Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre.

> Alphabet is great at marketing themselves as makers. But what they really excel at is finding great ideas in the wild and making them mediocre.

Mediocre for users that is. For the stock price, quite the contrary. $GOOG has about tripled in market cap in five years (start 2020: 50 USD, today 166 USD).

That is why acquisitions at this scale should be banned, period, no exceptions, and existing megacorps be broken up. Android has gotten so large and dominant, not even Amazon can run their own OS any more, much less any truly FOSS alternative, and there's no market pressure at all that would force Google to combat shit like deceptive ads in Play Store games. Google Search has gone utterly down the drain in usability but again, there's barely any competitor left and it's unviable to start one. Google Chrome still is the fastest browser around, its engine powering everything but Safari and Firefox, and the latter is all but gone in market share because again, Google's cash coffers fund development with which no one can compete.

A free market actually requires some sort of regulation to make sure competitive pressure can exist, and the behemoths are so large that effects of scale and network / vertical integration exert a completely unhealthy pressure on both users and the few suppliers that remain.

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#28

Post by kadushka »

sylens wrote: post #19
nsoonhui wrote: post #6

Any circumstances change that prompted Alphabet and Wiz to redo the deal? I am not aware of what are the exact roadblocks that stopped the deal last year, and it isn't clear from the article that they have been removed. 23 billion is already a huge sum, so more money than that isn't likely to cause a change of heart, I guess.

You wonder if Wiz is having second thoughts about IPO just as we go into recession

What recession?

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#29

Post by blackjack_ »

islewis wrote: post #15
BoredPositron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always looks like they don’t know what to do with the products after acquisition.

It's because the motivation for these acquisitions doesn't have much to do with product. It's just a way to extinguish outside talent and innovation that could disrupt down the road.

Certainly not. Doubleclick is much of the backbone of google advertising to this day.

Re: Alphabet in Talks to Buy Cloud Security Firm Wiz for $33B

#30

Post by hyperbovine »

nsoonhui wrote: post #6

Any circumstances change that prompted Alphabet and Wiz to redo the deal? I am not aware of what are the exact roadblocks that stopped the deal last year, and it isn't clear from the article that they have been removed. 23 billion is already a huge sum, so more money than that isn't likely to cause a change of heart, I guess.

Maybe anti-trust concerns plus a massively more amenable administration and DOJ? Biden + big tech was always an uneasy marriage at best.
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