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Google to buy Wiz for $32B

reuters.com

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Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#681

Post by msm_ »

hluska wrote: post #603
1oooqooq wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most people here are also in security and still haven't heard. It's more likely backroom kickbacks (and/or mossad) than invisible unicorn.

Two things: 1.) Most people here are likely not in security. 2.) I’m only adjacent to security but have heard of Wiz. If you work in security and haven’t, are you sure you’re good enough to subject us to your opinion?

>2.) I’m only adjacent to security but have heard of Wiz. If you work in security and haven’t, are you sure you’re good enough to subject us to your opinion?

For some reason I picked this hill to die on in this thread. I work in IT security for a long time, and I have never heard of Wiz. My focus is malware reverse engineering and adjacent subfields. I have no interest in anything Cloud.

"are you sure you’re good enough to subject us to your opinion" feels a bit dismissive.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#682

Post by therealdrag0 »

tombert wrote: post #598
smlacy wrote: post #489

Just think: This company is 5 years old. That's just 1825 days, or 43800 hours, and they've created $32B of "value" in that time. That's an average rate of almost $750k/hour continuously. Incredible.

I have no idea how these corporate acquisitions are valued. Craftsman Tools was sold to Black and Decker for $500 Million. This was and is a respected tool brand with an international presence making physical and tangible products and it is apparently worth 1/64th of Wiz. I'm not even saying Wiz is overvalued, I don't know, I'm just not sure how they come up with these numbers.

I think the main calculus is around estimating future profits. Do they make a profit? Is it a crowded space? Is the market space growing? What assets do they have? People, land, factories, or intellectual IP? Etc etc.

I don’t know the details of either deal but it’s easy to imagine a case where Craftsman tools is just a brand in a crowded market with no special sauce. For example Sears never even made the tools, they outsourced it. Also it sold for 900m, 500m was the initial payment.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#684

Post by tombert »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #682
tombert wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how these corporate acquisitions are valued. Craftsman Tools was sold to Black and Decker for $500 Million. This was and is a respected tool brand with an international presence making physical and tangible products and it is apparently worth 1/64th of Wiz. I'm not even saying Wiz is overvalued, I don't know, I'm just not sure how they come up with these numbers.

I think the main calculus is around estimating future profits. Do they make a profit? Is it a crowded space? Is the market space growing? What assets do they have? People, land, factories, or intellectual IP? Etc etc. I don’t know the details of either deal but it’s easy to imagine a case where Craftsman tools is just a brand in a crowded market with no special sauce. For example Sears never even made the tools, they…

> Also it sold for 900m, 500m was the initial payment.

Yep, you're definitely right, I misread. Still less than a billion.

> I think the main calculus is around estimating future profits. Do they make a profit? Is it a crowded space? Is the market space growing? What assets do they have? People, land, factories, or intellectual IP? Etc etc.

Yeah I guess that makes enough sense, though I have to admit that sometimes it feels kind of removed from reality sometimes.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#685

Post by Nimitz14 »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #589
laweijfmvo wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe (or maybe I don’t want to believe) that this could ever happen? Even if Wiz has T&C’s that allow full access to clients’ data, and even if the T&C allow some sort of “use” of that data that includes training an LLM, surely you can’t release an AI trained on private information to the public? You can’t have Gemini spitting out internal/private/confidential information? Am I just naive?

I'm guessing you would be the same guy who wouldn't torrent millions of books and copyrighted works to train your LLM. Zuck can afford not to care about that pesky detail You are not naive, you are not considering that at certain scales, your concerns are the cost of doing business.

Not the same thing at all. Corporations care about their data a lot and would cancel deals over this. Noone cares if some authors get upset, they have no leverage. Disappointing how people will make confident statements while being so clearly clueless.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#686

Post by [deleted] »

tgma wrote: post #460
Taek wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is 6x generous? Alphabet's P/E is 23. That means $2 billion rev implies $46b valuation (assuming high margins) These deals always have more than meets the eye. Google wouldn't acquire revenue at a fair market price just for revenue's sake - there's some reason they expect to get value beyond the revenue. That doesn't mean its nepotism. It could be that they think they can triple revenue per customer with some syn…

P/E is the earnings multiple, not revenue. Your assuming high margins is doing a lot of legwork here. Often untrue for growing startups.

[deleted]

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#687

Post by tptacek »

ryanSrich wrote: post #540
1oooqooq wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most people here are also in security and still haven't heard. It's more likely backroom kickbacks (and/or mossad) than invisible unicorn.

If you're in security and you haven't at least heard of Wiz, I have doubts about what you actually do. I'm not saying you have to be a CSPM expert, but not even hearing about Wiz, when they are the largest CSPM, is somewhat concerning.

I've heard of Wiz, but would have had a hard time listing out their feature/benefit statement, because I don't work with CSPM tools. I don't think this "I have doubts about what you actually do" line is doing the work you want it to; it may be backfiring on you a bit.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#688

Post by FreakLegion »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #638
p1necone wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% market share in any industry with an even slightly healthy level of competition is huge. The fact that people think it's not for tech feels like an indictment of the overall health of the industry to me.

Perhaps I should have been clearer, but especially compared to the rest of the enterprise tech market, security is unusually fragmented. There is no Microsoft or Cisco of the security market in the way those companies dominate the desktop operating system and core networking markets, respectively. Analysts sometimes refer to the enterprise networking market as "Cisco and the Seven Dwarves". Nobody has ever said that…

Microsoft is the Microsoft of the enterprise security market, more or less. They completely dominate email, largely dominate identity, have a plurality if not a majority on endpoint, but don't compete in network.

> The industry slowly converged on EDR as the sort-of successor to endpoint AV budgets.

This was a dedicated effort by CrowdStrike working with analysts back in 2017-2018. EDR capabilities themselves, interestingly, grew out of forensics companies like Guidance Software. HBGary and Mandiant were the early players. FireEye killed Mandiant's EDR off, but HBGary's lives on to some extent today, two or three acquisitions later, at GoSecure.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#689

Post by alberth »

ryanSrich wrote: post #539
detourdog wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never heard of them until they were purchased for $32 billion.

This is wild to me. As someone in security, Wiz is definitely one of the whales.

It's a whale, but a young whale.

Wiz has only been around for 5-years.

Re: Google to buy Wiz for $32B

#690

Post by mattfrommars »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #20
whitepoplar wrote: post #10

Can anyone with security expertise clarify what Wiz actually does? Is it a legitimate company or is it fuzzy consultingware?

It is a very legitimate tool. It identifies misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in cloud deployments. Anything from a container with a known-vulnerable package in the manifest to a workload with improper firewall rules.

Isn't this what tool like MEND or Black Duck (formerly Synopses)?
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