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Google to buy Wiz for $32B

reuters.com

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Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#141

Post by mikeyouse »

bklyn11201 wrote: post #96
jaimebuelta wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say that's an all-cash purchase. So it seems that they really put $32bn in the bank account.

Ultimately they are buying the shares of all existing shareholders. Wiz tells Google who the shareholders are after all triggers of options to shares are resolved. Then Google wires each shareholder after the signatures are complete. No money should go into Wiz bank account. 10-25% of the cash is held back to make sure the company and key employees fulfill promises made as part of the transaction.

Right - the Wiz bank account is about to be the Google bank account, so it wouldn't make any sense for them to receive the funds.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#143

Post by popol1991 »

kamranjon wrote: post #107

I’m just curious if anyone here has actually heard of this company before this announcement? If you have, what is your opinion on this acquisition?

They are huge in the cybersecurity space, led by veteran founders, solve real problems, fastest growth to $100M ARR in the history...

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#144

Post by _countzero_ »

jtgverde wrote: post #83
jordanb wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out McKinsey is really bad at business and letting a McKinsey ghoul run your company is a good way to run it into the ground.

GOOG is up ~152% since Sundar took over...

Not the flex you think this is.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#145

Post by Marsymars »

atemerev wrote: post #137
yen223 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think WhatsApp had the same kind of revenue that Wiz has, even normalised for 2014 numbers.

WhatsApp purchase was for that sweet sweet data of everyone's contact lists (this was their original innovation for onboarding — just give us access to your phone book and we'll tell you who else is on WhatsApp). Their earnings were completely irrelevant in price discussions. The billions were paid for the dataset.

I'd expect a lot of the money was also to prevent a competitor with WhatsApp's ubiquity from existing. (Or selling to another competitor.)

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#146

Post by creaghpatr »

stackskipton wrote: post #127
byteknight wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How on earth does buying Wiz force other developers to move? I think the tinfoil is too tight.

Wiz itself doesn’t. But Wiz knows what is going on in everyone cloud. That data could be fed to GCP sales team though customers might riot if that happens.

>That data could be fed to GCP sales team though customers might riot if that happens

Large enterprises don't sign the stock terms and conditions that would enable this, most do or should have legal teams redlining contracts around how cloud data is accessed and used by vendors. Maybe Wiz is so good they would agree to it, but it would get challenged and negotiated during the sales cycle.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#147

Post by _countzero_ »

jordanb wrote: post #54
1970-01-01 wrote: post #5

One wonders if $32B spent "pluggin' up the holes" would accomplish more. A lot of open source code could be rewritten at this price point.

They're paying mostly for Wiz's customer book, who they will quickly alienate and drive to competitors.

Paying $32 billion dollars for a customer book with no network effect is insane

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#148

Post by walterbell »

Customer feedback (2024), https://old.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/comments/1c1s9r2/wiz_...

> Wiz combines a graph search for asset management with agentless vuln and malware scanning that clones EBS volumes and scans them on their infrastructure. That's a great combo for vuln management, but has some downsides like delays between scans and cloud costs. They have a sensor with solid detection rules, and are okay at a bunch of other stuff like cloud log threat detection and sensitive data detection. They've basically pushed what you can do without an agent to the limit.

VC approach to enterprise sales, https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1a1jn00hc & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41042462

> [Cyberstarts] shows an internal rate of return of more than 100%, an unusual figure even for the best funds in the world.. The first sales come from the loyal CISOs who work with the fund.. Ra'anan offers [CISOs] the big dream of the world of employees - shares in a venture capital fund.. all funds that specialize in cyber go after CISOs and entice them with dinners, conferences, and some also offer them holdings in the fund. However.. he perfected it to a completely different level.. No CISO has ever received compensation for purchasing products.. They receive 4% of the success fees of the general partner (GP) in the fund.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#150

Post by Tuna-Fish »

SSLy wrote: post #123
neom wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd be so kind for those of us that haven't touched cloud in 5/10 years, what is Wiz? from reading the google announcement: solving the supply chain hybrid cloud security issues? I could google I know but you seem to know what you are talking about, so if you'd be so kind. :)

it's a linter for your yaml spaghetti

And reason they can get recurring revenue for what is indeed basically a linter, is that what it lints your configuration files against is not just best practices but also regulatory compliance. And that gets hairy enough and changes often enough that it's usually worth it to pay for it to be someone else's headache.
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