Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by tivert » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

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…

>> 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.

For the company. It's also faster and cheaper for the company to just to ignore all regulatory requirements (financial reporting, product safety, pollution, labor, etc.), but that's usually illegal for good reason.

It's seems pretty dysfunctional that companies would be allowed to do an end-run around pre-IPO scrutiny like this.

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

#142

Post by rolandog » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:01 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #91

belter wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect a company to turn and stay profitable, by doing their core business, prioritizing product quality, customer service and sustainable development. Not to end up as an over leveraged financial construct riding on extracting more and more of their customers. Optimize the business quality not the shareholders returns.

Would you (or do you) invest in that company over a different one whose share prices appreciate by a greater amount? Would you accept less compensation if your employer cannot keep up with competitors?

I would stop buying from a company that "decides to go public" (for me, it's just code for "we're now OK with whittling our product's quality to make profits for some people that have found a captive market").

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

#143

Post by Analemma_ » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #21

pavlov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really a merger because the other company is a “blank check” holding company (a.k.a. SPAC). It has no operations, it just holds a bunch of money put in by investors who want to find a private company that wants to go public.

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

It's probably going to be made illegal, or at least a lot more heavily regulated, any day now. The SEC has indicated that they're not happy with how SPACs are being used to skirt IPO disclosures.

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

#144

Post by Arnavion » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

ChancyChance wrote: post #140

I was a big fan of Yubikey (I have 3) until fewer and fewer services supported them, instead switching to authenticator apps. Now I have zero hard tokens, but still four authenticator apps: Google + 3 for banking services that use their own. The biggest killer was the fact that Yubikey NFC is so awful. I worked with tech support repeatedly, even bought two new keys, and it almost never worked right.

Services support Yubikeys through U2F / WebAuthn, not anything Yubikey-specific, right? If you're using services that don't support that, I take it the apps you do use are using TOTP?

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

#145

Post by tivert » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #86

gizmo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve seen pre-revenue companies that promised flying cars and other obvious scams go public via SPACs. If you don’t consider that SPAC abuse your bar is a lot lower than mine. These are companies that had no chance of surviving the more serious road show due diligence that the likes of GS demand when they take startups public. Instead we saw popular podcasts push their SPACs on gullible retail investors, based on fu…

Index ETFs have been around for 15+ years now, and the advice is widely known that if you are an uneducated investor without inside information or some type of edge, you should stick to sub 0.15% expense ratio index funds. It is so easy nowadays that all you have to do is figure out the year you want to retire and buy that year’s target date fund and forget about it. If people want to gamble, then that is their probl…

>> Instead we saw popular podcasts push their SPACs on gullible retail investors, based on fuzzy concepts like disruption and TAM. Subsequently these SPACs lost 90% of their value and the insiders made bank. I hope to see jail sentences for the more shameless SPAC pump and dump players.

> Index ETFs have been around for 15+ years now, and the advice is widely known that if you are an uneducated investor without inside information or some type of edge, you should stick to sub 0.15% expense ratio index funds....

> If people want to gamble, then that is their problem.

So what? It's also well known that the IRS doesn't take payment in iTunes gift cards. So do you think if people get scammed, it is their problem for not knowing better? Should we just repeal all the laws against fraud and scams, because caveat emptor?

The behavior described in the GP post is unacceptable, and the fact that someone theoretically should have known better doesn't excuse it.

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

#146

Post by callalex » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:11 PM UTC

fra wrote: post #136

belter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who just bought some keys last week for the same exact reasons, I share the same exact concerns. Why this need to always make more and more money? Do one thing, do it right, keep your customers happy, get your money, enjoy your life...

Don't you expect to make more and more money as throughout your life as well?

My goal is to do less work for enough money. Letting yubico chug along without growth would accomplish that for me if I was the owner.

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

#147

Post by aidenn0 » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:12 PM UTC

Raed667 wrote: post #21

pavlov wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really a merger because the other company is a “blank check” holding company (a.k.a. SPAC). It has no operations, it just holds a bunch of money put in by investors who want to find a private company that wants to go public.

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

I mean a few years back I was told by my accountant that I made too much money to contribute to a Roth IRA, but it was 100% kosher to open a traditional IRA and immediately convert it to a Roth IRA. The fact that this was legal also baffles me.

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

#148

Post by belter » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

fra wrote: post #136

belter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody who just bought some keys last week for the same exact reasons, I share the same exact concerns. Why this need to always make more and more money? Do one thing, do it right, keep your customers happy, get your money, enjoy your life...

Don't you expect to make more and more money as throughout your life as well?

Of course. But additional compensation, sometimes brings forced compromises in the form of increased risk, or tramping the core values that made you start in the first place.

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

#149

Post by michaelt » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #92

lotsofpulp wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Index ETFs have been around for 15+ years now, and the advice is widely known that if you are an uneducated investor without inside information or some type of edge, you should stick to sub 0.15% expense ratio index funds. It is so easy nowadays that all you have to do is figure out the year you want to retire and buy that year’s target date fund and forget about it. If people want to gamble, then that is their probl…

I'm not sure what your argument is. Sophisticated investors don't invest in obvious scams. That's tautologically true. Does that mean we should just watch and do nothing while people get scammed? The thing is, nobody is born sophisticated and there are many ways to get hurt in financial markets in the absence of scams even if you're intelligent and do your homework. You mention index trackers, but they are no silver…

> Sophisticated investors don't invest in obvious scams. That's tautologically true. Does that mean we should just watch and do nothing while people get scammed?

Imagine I buy a chainsaw which is clearly labelled as something that can cut your hands off, it's widely known and obvious to everyone that chainsaws can cut your hands off very easily, not just in the specialist financial press but also on comedy shows and from TV news pundits and loads of other sources - I'm a mentally competent adult, I'm informed about the substantial risks, I want the chainsaw anyway so I can chop down lots of trees fast. Then I chop my own hand off by mistake.

Was it society's responsibility to protect me from my own mistakes, even when I was fully informed of the risks?

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

#150

Post by kylehotchkiss » Wed, Apr 19, 2023, 5:26 PM UTC

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.

Passkeys already work with Secure Enclave and across multiple devices. Yubikeys require a purchase and potentially multiple keys.

Passkeys will win the war for the everyday user, and Yubikeys will remain a niche IT item. Their focus on FIPS audiences is good though as that should provide a longer-term reliable source of sales.

I hope Yubikey survives long term because I like their tech implementation (a key must be present AND physically touched to activate). I travel much more confidently with Yubikey locked accounts. I know where my Yubikeys are at home and I don't generally take them out with me.

The war for better securing online accounts benefits us all though. haveibeenpwned hasn't gotten any smaller over the years :/