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Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

troyhunt.com

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Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#81

Post by dustinmoris »

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt...

Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limiting how the buyer can/wants to do with HIBP? If he didn't want to give away control then don't sell, find investment, find sponsors, find a business model which pays the bills and allows you to hire staff so you can scale it yourself. Decide what you want first :)

EDIT:

I think the increasing exposure and interest in HIBP has made Troy fantasize about a potentially nice cheque which a buyer could write him which could put him into early retirement, but then he realised two things along the process which made him change his mind on selling:

- HIBP is not really worth the amount that could retire a family (interest value, website hits value, etc.)

- The fan messages gave him a bad concience

In the end the whole thing was not worth it.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#82

Post by lmm »

tomschlick wrote: post #56
mike_d wrote: post #31

I appreciate what HIBP does, but I believe it serves Troy's personal brand more than it would any corporate owner. The biggest issue is the data is super stale. Things regularly pop up in SpyCloud 6-12 months before HIBP, and as a result they are a much more attractive acquisition target. There is also an unreasonable dependency on CloudFlare kool-aid for HIBP and his other services. I reached out to Troy about spons…

> There is also an unreasonable dependency on CloudFlare kool-aid for HIBP and his other services. How it is unreasonable? Do you criticize the hosting platform / cdn of every service you use? CF has been a huge help to Troy with optimizing caching and helping him with the k-anonymity setup to make the scale of HIBP possible with less infrastructure. Their network is top notch (sub 10ms for most population centers) a…

If your whole raison d'etre is to be a trusted source on privacy and security matters, then putting yourself in a position where you can't speak objectively about the organisation that controls 10% of the internet's traffic is massively compromising that. I'm sure Hunt will do his best, but how could anyone possibly make a fair judgement of something controversial like "Flexible SSL" when his livelihood is dependent on them?

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#83

Post by deedree »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #52
notlukesky wrote: post #42

Anyone have a clue who the potential acquirer was? Just curious as to whether they wanted the brand of Troy Hunt as the databases are public and most technically savvy organizations can put one together.

My personal guess is Mozilla (not sure whether Corporation or Foundation). Their mission and vision seem to align well with Troy's views on privacy and security, but for reasons unrelated to HIBP, they're cutting costs. https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/15/mozilla-lays-off-70-as-it-...

Yes, that would be my guess as well. They seem(ed) to be the most aligned with his mission. Giving him the freedom to stay in his home while also being in a corporate environment that could give him the necessary know how and back up to grow his baby.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#84

Post by mikorym »

dustinmoris wrote: post #81

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt... Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limitin…

I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here.

I have a perennial objection to the "Silicon Valley Way" where you try to build a scalable product or service and immediately look for funding (and later a buyer).

Normal companies just start. And try to be profitable quickly. I think this is probably the issue as well that Troy eventually found there. I think he should really be thinking: "What is my service and what is my product, and what is the 80-20 of where my product is worth the most."

And I don't mean dumb things like ads. I think he should be doing custom services for big companies that care about security.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#86

Post by mikorym »

mikorym wrote: post #84
dustinmoris wrote: post #81

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt... Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limitin…

I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here. I have a perennial objection to the "Silicon Valley Way" where you try to build a scalable product or service and immediately look for funding (and later a buyer). Normal companies just start. And try to be profitable quickly. I think this is probably the issue as well that Troy eventually found there. I think he should really be thinking: "Wh…

To give an example, he probably can help a lot of big companies just with their authentication policies. Accountants are ignorant about these things and maybe he could for example be asked about when to use a password and when to use some kind of token, how to setup access to EC2 or Azure virtual machines and things like that.

I know these in principle should be simple. But the man is a rock star and should be able to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic BS.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#87

Post by michaelt »

dustinmoris wrote: post #81

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt... Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limitin…

> - HIBP is not really worth the amount that could retire a family

What do you think that amount is?

I mean, Australia's median household income is US$44,000 which you could achieve with US$1.1 million and an investment paying 4% above inflation.

I can easily imagine HIBP being valued that much by the right buyer - such as a company with an anti-credential-stuffing product.

Of course, someone hoping to retire and live a life of luxury would be a different matter.

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#88

Post by dustinmoris »

mikorym wrote: post #84
dustinmoris wrote: post #81

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt... Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limitin…

I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here. I have a perennial objection to the "Silicon Valley Way" where you try to build a scalable product or service and immediately look for funding (and later a buyer). Normal companies just start. And try to be profitable quickly. I think this is probably the issue as well that Troy eventually found there. I think he should really be thinking: "Wh…

> I don't think the fact that KPMG ran it is necessarily the key thing here

Agreed, and I also didn't mean to suggest that, but I am still surprised that Troy made of himself such a fool by hiring KPMG for really anything. He's a tiny one person business/sole trader, there is absolutely nothing which KPMG could do for him which another professional couldn't have done much more effective, cheaper and faster.

KPMG are most foremost sales people. They did what they are trained well to do, make him feel bigger than he is. "Why don't we introduce you to our team", "have a seat mr. hunt", "want a galss of this amazing champage whilst my sexy secretary calls for the big boss to talk to you?". LOL They totally got him. I'm sorry but that's really really foolish and I sort of lost a bit of respect for him there as soon as he mentioned KPMG ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#89

Post by dd36 »

tptacek wrote: post #44
irjustin wrote: post #13

Thanks to Troy for HIBP and the story here. It may be because he cannot speak towards the specifics of the deal, but I truly hope there was a breakup clause. For those un-aware, M&A deals eventually go exclusive which, as this post points out, is very very time consuming, which means expensive. Those who are involved in the deal itself, very little work gets done that runs the business. So to protect against the down…

Does anyone here have a story about a startup operating at Troy Hunt's (tiny) scale actually getting a breakup fee? I've been through a couple acquisitions now and I've never even heard of someone getting a credible binding breakup clause.

I negotiated the acquirer paying all legal fees and for our time. We were tiny. It worked out. Like others said, spent a lot of time drafting superfluous policy docs in response to requests for copies...

Re: Project Svalbard, Have I Been Pwned and its ongoing independence

#90

Post by thejosh »

michaelt wrote: post #87
dustinmoris wrote: post #81

This whole things seems extremely naive and almost like a different Troy Hunt... Why KPMG? Their competence is below average for an above average price hiding behind a big corporate name. Why answer thousands of questions, the majority could have just been a copy paste one liner. You're selling a side gig, not a massive company. Also why selling it in the first place and then not wanting to give up control by limitin…

> - HIBP is not really worth the amount that could retire a family What do you think that amount is? I mean, Australia's median household income is US$44,000 which you could achieve with US$1.1 million and an investment paying 4% above inflation. I can easily imagine HIBP being valued that much by the right buyer - such as a company with an anti-credential-stuffing product. Of course, someone hoping to retire and liv…

Considering that he already lives in a pretty nice place and makes a pretty decent income, not sure he would care about the final amount too much.

PS: check the ABS, it's different median last time I checked.

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