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Pivotal Software S-1

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Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#31

Post by ryanong »

taurath wrote: post #24
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience also was that they have a huge snob factor there. I was doing consulting for a database company when I visited their office. In the meeting I was announced as someone when knew our company's product, to which one of the people responded "Oh, I think we already know how works". I wanted to respond, you guys have no f-ing clue how it works, but couldn't for decorum reasons.

Yeah its pretty much crazyland over there - they 100% believe their own kool-aid, and evangelize their processes like its the second coming.

Ex-Pivot here. The kool-aid was amazing. Would drink again.

Best communicators I have ever worked with.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#32

Post by jgh »

gorbachev wrote: post #27
smellf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the significance of 9:06am? These guys sound like the worst kind of narcissists. The place sounds more like a cult than a company.

This explains some of it: http://www.businessinsider.com/pivotal-906-am-breakfast-meet...

"the morning was too short" = "we need butts in seats 9-5 because reasons"

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#33

Post by stickfigure »

Pixeleen wrote: post #9
m0meni wrote: post #6

This is the first I'm hearing of Pivotal. Are they a cloud provider or something? I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what they do from their website.

They are a super trendy development and cloud consultancy firm based in San Francisco and New York. They have all the right words and everything. Pretentious start time of 9:06 am, signalled by a gong. All pair programming on iMacs. I visited their very shiny office for a tech talk. Two employees (they call themselves Pivots) used the exact same language to describe how good the strict schedule is. I struck up a conv…

This is unnecessarily cynical.

I did a couple consulting stints at Pivotal, working on the CF team. They have a very particular methodology that evolved from the earliest days of agile (Rob Mee was a friend of Kent Beck back when XP was being worked out). I walked in there as a very experienced engineer and a healthy amount of skepticism... and it turned out to be a fantastic learning experience. I've since taken the Pivotal process (yeah, even the weird stuff like pair programming) and used it effectively to manage subsequent companies.

I don't love everything about Pivotal (neither Ruby nor Go make my favorite-languages list) but then, not everyone at Pivotal does either. But overall they do agile right, and they have a lot to show for it. You can mock 9:06 but also note that people go home at 6pm and have lives. The schedule has its upsides.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#34

Post by bgentry »

The ownership breakdown is so unusual compared to typical VC-backed startup IPOs. Pivotal has had an interesting run with their history of acquisition and spinoff. Also the Pivotal (cloud infrastructure software) vs Pivotal Labs (consulting) split.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1574135/000104746918...

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#35

Post by raywu »

mywittyname wrote: post #22
exelius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They basically make a Java-based application abstraction layer that sits on top of AWS, Azure, VMWare, etc. Basically a platform for managing storage and compute across multiple on-prem and cloud providers. It’s real enterprisey stuff — as in, it’s probably not even interesting to you until you’re big enough to run in a half dozen data centers and within all the cloud providers.

I don't foresee companies continuing to pay for the ability to switch cloud providers. Mostly because I doubt the pricing differences between providers will ever be significant enough to justify moving. I also suspect that providers will not keep feature-competitive with one another. It seems like every month, AWS is releasing new tools, and there's no way that other providers are maintaining this pace. My suspicion…

It's not always about the price. I've come across government RFP/RFQs that require data to be stored locally (through cloud or self-hosting).

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#36

Post by stickfigure »

exelius wrote: post #8
m0meni wrote: post #6

This is the first I'm hearing of Pivotal. Are they a cloud provider or something? I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what they do from their website.

They basically make a Java-based application abstraction layer that sits on top of AWS, Azure, VMWare, etc. Basically a platform for managing storage and compute across multiple on-prem and cloud providers. It’s real enterprisey stuff — as in, it’s probably not even interesting to you until you’re big enough to run in a half dozen data centers and within all the cloud providers.

Only a couple components are Java-based. CloudFoundry started out almost entirely Ruby, but most of it has since been rewritten in Go.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#37

Post by abuckenheimer »

We do not control and may be unable to predict the future course of open-source technologies, including those used in our offering, which could reduce the market appeal of our offering and damage our reputation.

This is a really cool risk factor that I've never seen before in an S-1, exciting that more big public companies are willing to accept the risk reward that comes with contributing to open source:

If open-source software programmers, many of whom we do not employ, or our own internal programmers do not continue to use, contribute to and enhance the open-source technologies that we rely on, the market appeal of our offering may be reduced, which could harm our reputation, diminish our brand and result in decreased revenue. We also cannot predict whether further developments and enhancements to these open-source technologies will be available from reliable alternative sources. If the open-source technologies that we rely on become unavailable, we may need to invest in researching and developing alternative technologies.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#38

Post by rjkennedy98 »

mywittyname wrote: post #22
exelius wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They basically make a Java-based application abstraction layer that sits on top of AWS, Azure, VMWare, etc. Basically a platform for managing storage and compute across multiple on-prem and cloud providers. It’s real enterprisey stuff — as in, it’s probably not even interesting to you until you’re big enough to run in a half dozen data centers and within all the cloud providers.

I don't foresee companies continuing to pay for the ability to switch cloud providers. Mostly because I doubt the pricing differences between providers will ever be significant enough to justify moving. I also suspect that providers will not keep feature-competitive with one another. It seems like every month, AWS is releasing new tools, and there's no way that other providers are maintaining this pace. My suspicion…

The main benefits of PCF are not cloud vender lock-in. Where I saw it used, they weren't even on AWS, but using PCF to migrate to microservices. Microservices were written with in Java with Spring Framework, another pivotal product. Pivotal consulting also taught them how to do pair programming, agile, and other "modern" software techniques.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#39

Post by volume »

abuckenheimer wrote: post #37

We do not control and may be unable to predict the future course of open-source technologies, including those used in our offering, which could reduce the market appeal of our offering and damage our reputation. This is a really cool risk factor that I've never seen before in an S-1, exciting that more big public companies are willing to accept the risk reward that comes with contributing to open source: If open-sour…

I wonder if Red Hat's S-1 said anything similar.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#40

Post by toomuchtodo »

justherefortart wrote: post #25
smellf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the significance of 9:06am? These guys sound like the worst kind of narcissists. The place sounds more like a cult than a company.

That's most of SF in my experience. Well either that or staffed 90%+ by H1b. Interesting place.

> Well either that or staffed 90%+ by H1b.

I didn't believe you for a moment, but wow:

http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Pivotal+Software+Inc&job=&c...

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