Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

yubico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 222 posts

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#111

Post by lotsofpulp »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #82
bhawks wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's faster and cheaper, those are things that are generally considered valuable. Faster: the finance markets have been extremely tenuous the past 4 years between pandemics, supply chain crisis, world wars, inflation, and so on. An IPO requires 12 to 18 months of work / process before listing. SPACs can be done in a quarter or 2. In uncertain times it is much less risky to get the listing done fast. Cheaper: Startups…

“Faster and cheaper” isn’t really the goal when selling stock to retirees and pension funds. Going public is supposed to be a rigorous process of assuring your grandparents that this company meets a minimum bar of compliance and financial quality. Finding a back door to avoid scrutiny is a flaw, not a feature. I get that we all want to avoid the paperwork and red tape in life, but there are certain things that we hav…

No one is forcing, or even recommending, retirees and pension funds to invest in SPACs.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#112

Post by tomatocracy »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #100
nly wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange argument. A profitable company that isn't growing (selling more stuff, hiring more people, etc) can have a stable (low) P/E and still pay a nice dividend.

The point is that when you go to invest your money for your retirement, you are going to pick whichever business’s shares give you the highest ROI. You, as a shareholder, are not optimizing for > keep your customers happy, get your money, enjoy your life... So why would you expect businesses to behave in a way other than maximizing ROI?

This is true but all the same is true for privately owned (eg VC backed) companies; maximising return (within whatever risk parameters shareholders are happy to accept) leaves plenty of room for disagreement about what the right way to do that is.

But often a change in ownership can also mean a change in risk tolerance, investment horizon and potentially in management incentives or management team. Some of these changes could align negatively with some customer interests and therefore caution from customers (especially those who worry they might not be seen as future core customers) is understandable when what has changed is unclear.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#113

Post by [deleted] »

bhawks wrote: post #38
Raed667 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact this is not only legal, but common practice baffles me ...

It's faster and cheaper, those are things that are generally considered valuable. Faster: the finance markets have been extremely tenuous the past 4 years between pandemics, supply chain crisis, world wars, inflation, and so on. An IPO requires 12 to 18 months of work / process before listing. SPACs can be done in a quarter or 2. In uncertain times it is much less risky to get the listing done fast. Cheaper: Startups…

[deleted]

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#115

Post by dingusdew »

toastal wrote: post #32

Open hardware security keys exist. Software should not lock themselves into proprietary hardware for security anymore than goobers locking themselves into Symantec's wrapper or only-our-app for basic TOTP which could be platform agnostic.

[dead]

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#116

Post by wnevets »

user3939382 wrote: post #103

The problem with going public is that performance is now measured quarterly. This incentivizes mortgaging the long-term health of the company for short-term gains. Brand loyalty and trust become assets that can be profitably liquidated by diluting the quality of products and services. By the time customers catch on and the company falters, the investors/owners that profited financially, and managers that profited on…

I've been following Yubico since almost its inception so I'm happy for Stina and her team. However I agree that this will probably end up being bad for customers in the coming years. I hope I am wrong.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#117

Post by labcomputer »

ckdarby wrote: post #96
red_admiral wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that model work considering the key is a piece of hardware, built to implement an open standard (at least for the U2F mode)? There's no "key phone home" phase in U2F. Also, though I would miss yubikeys if they went under like this, in practice I could switch to google titan or something else and it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Cross key syncing service. You plug both yubikeys in. Authenticate on both keys using the tool and then you're able to transfer/backup. Corporate management offerings around Yubikeys, inventories, call back home to renew an expiry if the yubikey itself when touched should give out the information. Trust me, if Yubikey hires me and goes IPO it is all downhill but the company will make a boatload more money. Every comp…

> Cross key syncing service.

Can’t work with FIDO/U2F, I’m afraid.

The protocol works a little differently than most people expect, which is what allows the hardware token to “store” an unlimited number of auth credentials.

What really happens at auth time is that the server (the one you are trying to authenticate to) sends a crypto package including the challenge and a key used to sign the challenge to the token. (That signing key was generated at enrollment time and encrypted using the token’s private key). The token then uses its internal private key to decrypt the signing key sent by the server, sign the challenge and send back the signed challenge.

So there is no way to transfer credentials because the credentials literally aren’t in the token (they’re stored—in encrypted form—on the servers you log in to). The only way that transfer could maybe work is by copying the token’s private key… but that kind of defeats the purpose of a security token.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#118

Post by labcomputer »

philip1209 wrote: post #104

I'm curious how Apple Passkeys will affect the Yubico business. Competition for U2F products may increase drastically as consumers begin adopting it. This may be prescient timing to go public for Yubico.

Probably not at all? Yubico is one of two brands that Apple recommends for securing your iCloud account.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#119

Post by codetrotter »

user3939382 wrote: post #103

The problem with going public is that performance is now measured quarterly. This incentivizes mortgaging the long-term health of the company for short-term gains. Brand loyalty and trust become assets that can be profitably liquidated by diluting the quality of products and services. By the time customers catch on and the company falters, the investors/owners that profited financially, and managers that profited on…

> The problem with going public is that performance is now measured quarterly.

The company I work for did not IPO yet either, and we still do performance reviews every quarter. So idk if going public matters much in that regard.

Re: Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

#120

Post by widowlark »

codetrotter wrote: post #119
user3939382 wrote: post #103

The problem with going public is that performance is now measured quarterly. This incentivizes mortgaging the long-term health of the company for short-term gains. Brand loyalty and trust become assets that can be profitably liquidated by diluting the quality of products and services. By the time customers catch on and the company falters, the investors/owners that profited financially, and managers that profited on…

> The problem with going public is that performance is now measured quarterly. The company I work for did not IPO yet either, and we still do performance reviews every quarter. So idk if going public matters much in that regard.

who defines your quarterly goals as a private company?
Post reply on HN