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DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

finance.yahoo.com

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Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#51

Post by re-thc »

AYBABTME wrote: post #43
re-thc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been buying companies non-stop for a while. It's their new operating model.

What would be the strategy you think they're going for?

The I pretend I know what I'm doing strategy.

Most acquisitions fail. It's a difficult path unless it fits a very specific need.

Yet a common management / product strategy is to buy random companies as though they are ingredients of a dish and think it'll just work.

Digital Ocean to me has lost their core focus and appeal. They aren't upgrading their hardware, software and other crucial pieces of their infrastructure. There's been gimmicks, acquisitions and marketing.

Someone said the executives there don't believe they can compete with the big cloud providers and so are poking at different areas to see what works.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#52

Post by rat9988 »

TheFreim wrote: post #36
kossTKR wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but i would say shadow.tech is way better valuable for money.

Does anyone know of a service like this that only charges based on storage + how much you use it? I would like to use something like this to run some windows software so I don't need a local VM or dual booting but paying monthly for something I would only use a few hours a month would not work for me.

Paperspace?

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#53

Post by user_named »

xNeil wrote: post #47
DTE wrote: post #6

Dillon here (CEO @ Paperspace, YCW15). I want to give a huge thanks to the YC community and all the support over the years. We have always admired DO and couldn't be happier to join forces!

Hi Dillon - congrats on the offer! I adore your product. Quick question though - how sure are you DO won't be interfering with the product and the current team will continue doing its job? Alternatively, would you like DO to take a dominant role in running the product?

Stop dreaming. The acquirer does whatever they want with what they've bought.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#54

Post by TheFreim »

rat9988 wrote: post #52
TheFreim wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know of a service like this that only charges based on storage + how much you use it? I would like to use something like this to run some windows software so I don't need a local VM or dual booting but paying monthly for something I would only use a few hours a month would not work for me.

Paperspace?

I can't use Paperspace due to them blocking my phone number (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36617551), plus I am interested in alternatives for the sake of comparing options.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#55

Post by BonoboIO »

re-thc wrote: post #34
FredPret wrote: post #30

I’m surprised by this. Digital Ocean is in no position to be splurging on new revenue streams. They’re underwater and making a loss [0]. They’ve got growing revenue but falling profits and they’ve got more debt than assets. They may want to raise their droplet prices, or issue more stock and then refocus on making their business profitable. [0] valustox.com/DOCN

They have been buying companies non-stop for a while. It's their new operating model.

Oh the SoftBank model.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#56

Post by 0xDEF »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #27
TradingPlaces wrote: post #8

People buying companies just to get their hands on some more Nvidia GPUs.

Ignorant question, but where is ATI in the AI/ML space? I only ever hear about NVidia and it's Cuda.

AMD exposed an OpenCL API for GPGPU and hoped the open source community would do the rest. That approach failed.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#57

Post by FredPret »

re-thc wrote: post #51
AYBABTME wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the strategy you think they're going for?

The I pretend I know what I'm doing strategy. Most acquisitions fail. It's a difficult path unless it fits a very specific need. Yet a common management / product strategy is to buy random companies as though they are ingredients of a dish and think it'll just work. Digital Ocean to me has lost their core focus and appeal. They aren't upgrading their hardware, software and other crucial pieces of their infrastructure…

I love DO as a user and not an investor, but their main value to me is that they have public-facing IPs. I could easily host all my sites on a single AMD machine under my desk, if only I had a good way of routing from the internet to my desk.

I would be closer to nine fives than five nines, but that's good enough even for many commercial sites, including mine.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#58

Post by drc500free »

7e wrote: post #33

$111M exit on $35M. Seems meh for seven years effort. Were prospects cloudy? Better return over seven years for most employees (possibly even founders) working up through a FAANG. I’m sure YC did great, of course.

It's kind of like going to vegas for a week and coming out with a lot of good stories and 90% of your money.

In terms of investor return, I think it's healthy to have some exits like this. A bunch of the money was only in for 2 years, and probably doubled their investment in that time. The rest of the investors got their money back, with something close to NASDAQ returns on top of it. If this was the baseline for the fund instead of going to zero, you wouldn't need unicorns and the questionable growth tactics that go with them.

If founders had 25%, they got "retirement with reasonable luxuries" or "gunpowder to play investor" money of double digit $millions.

If 20-25 employees split an option pool of 15%, it's close to replacing the FAANG opportunity cost.

So totally agree that it's a bit of a "meh" outcome in comparison to financial alternatives, and the pie splitting matters a lot. But it didn't go to zero, and everyone is within a stone's throw of their stock market / FAANG hurdle rates (and it's not like that FAANG career is guaranteed for people who thrive better at startups). And the stories and experiences are a hell of a lot better.

Re: DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash

#60

Post by dboreham »

user_named wrote: post #53
xNeil wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Dillon - congrats on the offer! I adore your product. Quick question though - how sure are you DO won't be interfering with the product and the current team will continue doing its job? Alternatively, would you like DO to take a dominant role in running the product?

Stop dreaming. The acquirer does whatever they want with what they've bought.

To be fair, parent only asked for a level of sureness. Which of course is zero.
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