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Tailscale has raised $160M

tailscale.com

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Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#151

Post by mmx1 »

peterlk wrote: post #85
vvpan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main problems with raising too much is that you stop caring about product-market fit and can go on tangents that do not make you competitive. This is quiet common afaik.

Yes; you will burn through all the capital you raise in ~18 months. It is _extremely_ difficult to efficiently allocate large raises (100M+) in 18 months. In fact, I’m developing a pet thesis that no single human or business can efficiently allocate more than $100M. This would imply that any time a single raise is more than 100M, the investors always would have had a better return by splitting it into chunks of 100M…

You can’t be serious. Lots of businesses easily have that much just in cost of goods or marketing spend. $100M is not such a crazy amount especially considering the cost of hiring technical people.

Also note that the benchmark of “efficiency” should be a function of growth, not some absolute standard.

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#152

Post by mindwork »

peterlk wrote: post #85
vvpan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the main problems with raising too much is that you stop caring about product-market fit and can go on tangents that do not make you competitive. This is quiet common afaik.

Yes; you will burn through all the capital you raise in ~18 months. It is _extremely_ difficult to efficiently allocate large raises (100M+) in 18 months. In fact, I’m developing a pet thesis that no single human or business can efficiently allocate more than $100M. This would imply that any time a single raise is more than 100M, the investors always would have had a better return by splitting it into chunks of 100M…

Now I'm waiting for all AI billboards in San Francisco to be replaced with Tailscale ads

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#154

Post by romanhn »

scarface_74 wrote: post #83
eddieroger wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be a sad day when this reference is posted and understood for the last time.

How many people on HN today would get the structure - “less $x than $y. No $z. Lame”?

Here's the source for those not familiar with the classic: https://slashdot.org/story/21026. Can't believe it's turning 25 next year.

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#155

Post by [deleted] »

panick21_ wrote: post #126
candiddevmike wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're delegating the control plane to Tailscale. Somehow we went decades without this being a thing for security reasons, dealt with the management of VPN appliances, and now suddenly everyone is OK with Tailscale owning the control plane of their VPN for the sake of convenience.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#156

Post by fngjdflmdflg »

tptacek wrote: post #99
radlad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent commenter used "understood" to mean "recognized." That said, I don't really understand the supposed misunderstanding you point out. It seems that dang argues that "the exchange was pleasant and successful." I've never seen someone claim otherwise. Rather, I've seen it used as an example of how technical users can fail to recognize the complexity inherent in their workflows, and therefore may also f…

No, it's not that simple. This is an instance of context collapse; people dunk on that exchange because they believe it's an HN person belittling Dropbox as a product, when in fact it was an HN person helpfully offering notes on a YC application.

They dunk on it because the author didn't see the the benefit of the product over using FTP. And it's hard to say the usage of "quite trivially" isn't "belittling" in some form, although I don't think using a loaded word is useful here. Even the followup response shows the same issue with the commenter's thinking:

>You are correct that this presents a very good, easy-to-install piece of functionality for Windows users. The Windows shortcomings that you point out are certainly problems, and I think that your software does a good job of overcoming that. (emphasis added.)

They still fail to understand that this is not a Windows or Linux issue but a reliability and ease of use issue. Not to mention the fact that the desktop Linux marketshare was probably less than 1% and therefore irrelevant in this context to begin with.

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#157

Post by maxclark »

$33m/year burn accelerating to $50m+/year

Profitability and exit math just got harder

I love the service and am rooting for them - I just don’t get this cash outlay

I can’t wait to learn what I’m missing here

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#158

Post by xyst »

Hope this means headscale involvement doesn’t get 86’d.

As I recall, a few tailscale folks contribute to this open source implementation of the “coordination server”. Apparently tailscale management approved it. So this means management at any time can revoke it, and possibly kill off self hosting of the coordination server as the open source clients become incompatible.

Re: Tailscale has raised $160M

#159

Post by xyst »

suralind wrote: post #18

Off-topic, but it makes me laugh that companies will list their “investors”, “advisors”, etc. on their company page, but not the people working there. That said, Tailscale is one of the products that just works.

This is a press release targeted by rapacious capitalists. By mentioning other big named investors, you keep the grift going and continue securing future funding until IPO.
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