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Yubico is merging with ACQ Bure and intends to go public

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

#201

Post by widowlark »

codetrotter wrote: post #125
widowlark wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who defines your quarterly goals as a private company?

My bosses and their bosses and their bosses and so on. Probably the board as well, in the end. I’m a simple Software Engineer, so I don’t really have much insights into that whole side of things.

but thats my point - its a much smaller group of usually highly invested people if your company is private (even with the quarterly reviews) - with a public company, there are a lot more investors with a lot lower stakes, which manipulates the goals and intentions of the company significantly.

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

#202

Post by JohnFen »

halJordan wrote: post #185
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…

This is the zeitgeist, i get it- corpos bad. But it is such a simplified cliché to buy into so wholly. Public companies are capable of long term planning. Quarterly reviews do enforce efficiency. What you've seen play out again and again is good corporate governance from public companies, you just don't notice it and more's the pity.

What I've seen play out time and time again is that a company with a good product goes public or gets purchased, and then their good product gets worse. Often much, much worse.

As a customer, I don't care why this is, but it is. That's why this is bad news every time it happens -- it's not that corporations are bad, it's that the products very often (but certainly not always) become undesirable.

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

#203

Post by JohnFen »

saltcured wrote: post #164
labcomputer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. (T…

I've read about how some folks are using FIDO apps on devices like the Ledger Nano, designed to be crypto currency wallets. These allow the (FIDO) device identity to be exported and later restored onto a new device from the same product line. As I understand it, the experience would be a bit more like restoring a passkey on a new phone, but using a locally secured backup rather than a cloud vendor. Since reading abou…

I wouldn't trust any authentication key that allowed private keys to leave the device.

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

#204

Post by JohnFen »

whoopdedo wrote: post #188
everdrive wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the other commenter noted, I’m talking about value to the customer rather than value to the company. WRT your list, I would only claim Apple as a clear success in this regard. (I don’t particularly like Apple myself, but Apple does seem to be giving customers more of what they actually want.) Microsoft - Ruining Windows to extract more value from customers. Facebook - hardly anything even needs to be said here. Go…

You give Apple too much credit. The original Apple I and Apple II were a hacker's delight. They went public in 1980 and the Apple /// was a failure. Then came the closed architecture of the Macintosh. Ever since Apple has been known as the company least friendly to hackers.

I still feel butthurt and betrayed by Apple because of the Mac.

But in fairness to Apple, the Mac marked a point where they overtly wanted to ditch their (then) current customer demographic and switch to an entirely different customer demographic. Which they successfully pulled off. And they do seem to be giving those people what they want, they just don't want the likes of us.

But, back to the topic, I consider Apple to be an example of a company going public and having an excellent product ruined as a result.

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

#205

Post by JohnFen »

account-5 wrote: post #64

Seems like another reason not to use yubikeys, especially with the push for Fido. The cynical part of me assumes going public means they'll need to generate more income for investors. Fancy a subscription service to keep you yubikeys working?

I don't think there's anything Yubico can do that affects the operation of the keys they've already sold. Any adverse product effects will be with new keys they will sell.

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

#206

Post by adrianmonk »

c22 wrote: post #186
aidenn0 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When you convert your traditional IRA to a Roth you immediately owe taxes on the amount. Then, presumably, due to your income, you can no longer contribute to it. Makes sense to me.

The point is that there are income limits for this process:

1. Take N dollars of post-tax money.

2. Put it in a Roth IRA.

But the same limits don't apply to this process:

1. Take N dollars of post-tax money.

2. Put it in a traditional IRA.

3. The next day, convert the traditional IRA to a Roth IRA.

When you do the conversion, you only owe taxes on any additional earnings (not your post-tax contribution) during the one day that it was a traditional IRA. So the second procedure accomplishes almost exactly the same thing as the first one, but it legally gets around the limit designed to prevent rich people from getting Roth IRA tax breaks.

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

#207

Post by tivert »

amanj41 wrote: post #184
tivert wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have an irrational concern about using security products from a company post-merger or acquisition. It has never ended well for me as an anecdotal user. Going public is taking that worry even further. I wouldn't call that an irrational concern, since it's in fact pretty rational. Stock market investors demonstrability do not value computer security over financial performance, and once they control a company, its…

I mostly agree with your point but I would say the exception is when the success of the company is closely tied to their security practices or their security features are their business. Okta being a good example, when it took a 10% drop after the breach last year.

> I mostly agree with your point but I would say the exception is when the success of the company is closely tied to their security practices or their security features are their business.

The problem is bad security practices don't become clear until it's too late for the customers. A company can coast on reputation for a long time, while its stuff fails to keep up in non-obvious ways.

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

#208

Post by JohnFen »

tptacek wrote: post #174

ACQ Bure is a SPAC, so really what Yubico is doing here is simply "going public"; a SPAC is just a vehicle for doing that, as is an underwritten IPO or a direct listing.

A SPAC is not "just a vehicle" for doing that. It's an intentional dodge to let companies avoid scrutiny but still go public. The use of a SPAC to do this automatically casts a bit of shade over the company.

But even ignoring that, going public itself doesn't bode well for the product regardless.

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

#209

Post by gizmo »

fallingknife wrote: post #179
gizmo wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SPACs are basically an incorporated bag of money, so yes, while they technically have the same disclosure requirements as any other public company the disclosures won't tell you anything. There is no Form S-1 for SPAC acquisition targets. A conventional IPO has a number of roadblocks for fraudsters. First they have to convince a reputable investment bank (like Goldman Sachs) to take them on as a client. Then the CEO…

Do you have an example of a SPAC where the.target was a scam? I'm not aware of any, and I follow this stuff more closely than most people.

Nikola Motor went from a 34bn market cap to near bankruptcy in 2 years. Their tech was a sham and the founder got prosecuted and convicted for defrauding investors.

Lordstown Motors. Faked their order book. Blatant securities fraud.

There are many others.

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

#210

Post by 1letterunixname »

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…

Yep. Expect features to roll out nonstop but quality to drop and things to break.
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