Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 288 posts

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#81

Post by solatic »

qaq wrote: post #65
ds wrote: post #7

Far more likely is Google was not willing to complete the deal and was pulling the plug after looking at internal data. Wiz, fearing the bad press of Google backing out rushes to tell journalists that THEY are walking away because they are worth more. Wiz's valuation is insane. Most people havent even heard of them. I think it was a > 60x ARR multiple on this deal. Id actually be kinda pissed if I was a google shareh…

Well realistically if they have a chance to take on Crowdstrike they might not be wrong to walk away.

On the one hand, even with the post-crash dip, CRWD has a $60.9 billion market cap, there's certainly marketshare to be taken from them. On the other hand, Wiz doesn't have an endpoint protection product (which is what failed for CRWD). They'd have to build one from scratch, which requires dedicated talent (engineers with kernel experience) that they might not have.

If anyone is going after CRWD it'll be one of their other competitors.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#82

Post by animuchan »

globular-toast wrote: post #73

Why would Google even consider this? They're an advertising company and haven't really made any money from anything but advertising. What would they do with this?

I suppose they'd add this to the GCP family of products, same as Apigee.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#83

Post by krisgenre »

globular-toast wrote: post #73

Why would Google even consider this? They're an advertising company and haven't really made any money from anything but advertising. What would they do with this?

Maybe this was about advertising after all ;). I now know there is a company named Wiz.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#84

Post by borski »

qaq wrote: post #65
ds wrote: post #7

Far more likely is Google was not willing to complete the deal and was pulling the plug after looking at internal data. Wiz, fearing the bad press of Google backing out rushes to tell journalists that THEY are walking away because they are worth more. Wiz's valuation is insane. Most people havent even heard of them. I think it was a > 60x ARR multiple on this deal. Id actually be kinda pissed if I was a google shareh…

Well realistically if they have a chance to take on Crowdstrike they might not be wrong to walk away.

Wiz does not do endpoint security. Different products entirely.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#85

Post by blitzar »

chii wrote: post #28
mrinfinitiesx wrote: post #9

Sometimes it's not about the money, it's actually about systems security and the level of which you actually want to build, deploy, and protect great products and infrastructure. 23 billion is a LOT of money. Looking forward to see how the IPO plays out.

> Sometimes it's not about the money it's always about the money.

Whenever somebody says to you "it's not about the money" or "i'm not doing this for the money"

It's (entirely) about the money.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#87

Post by danpalmer »

generic92034 wrote: post #75
danpalmer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I don't have any comment on this instance, in general I think it's easier to hype the public markets who have limited information than it is to type a bunch of people doing due diligence on an acquisition, even if ultimately the latter is still a case of public market valuation through the acquiring public company. This is particularly true in the current age of extremely hype driven retail investing.

> a bunch of people doing due diligence on an acquisition I bet those people rarely get promoted for preventing an acquisition, though. Probably that is why we see so many crazy acquisitions, in general.

At the SVP level, sure, but at the IC level, I doubt any accountant gets promoted for saying "looks fine", whereas highlighting details that superiors can use to make a decision like this might be something that gets you promoted.

This is a misunderstanding I think many non-googlers have, thinking people only get promoted for launches (or in this case acquisitions). It's more nuanced than that: people get promoted for impact and while launches are one obvious form, you can sell pretty much anything useful as impact if you can show how it's useful. In the case of M&A, avoiding a bad acquisition, if you can justify it, would be impact.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#88

Post by borski »

leereeves wrote: post #36
walterbell wrote: post #21

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1a1jn00hc > [Cyberstarts] has a portfolio of only 22 companies whose combined value is $35 billion. Five of these companies are unicorns, first and foremost Wiz, which seems to be breaking all the rules of growth and success and setting new standards in the industry.. In all three of his funds, Ra'anan shows an internal rate of return of more than 100%, an unusual figur…

The first link alleges that Cyberstarts pays kickbacks to CISOs who buy their products. Is that legal?

It's not a kickback because Cyberstarts is providing 'points' which eventually equate to carry for them as advisors to the startups in the fund, to which they donate their time, expertise, and so on.

The implication, you could argue, is that that also includes purchases from the startups, but that isn't at all a requirement of the program, at least as far as anything legal is concerned, to my knowledge.

That said, it makes sense that if you're advising companies that are building products with your advice in mind, they're going to be solving problems you need solved, so you're more likely to buy from them. The fact that you have a good working relationship with them already is a bonus, of course.

That's the optimistic view.

The cynical view is that it's no different from drug companies paying doctors to shill their pills.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#89

Post by joedwin »

mirzap wrote: post #57
blindriver wrote: post #25

Lots of companies have regretted passing up on an acquisition, especially one this large and of a company this young. My bet would be that this company is making the same mistake as Yahoo, Groupon, etc.

A lot of them didn't, ie, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat. I wonder if this rejection is related to the CrowdStrike incident. Are they expecting or already experiencing a significant influx of new clients? I'm unsure if their services overlap, just curious.

tbh, Google itself rejected the acquisition.

Re: Google-Wiz deal fizzles out, company will pursue IPO

#90

Post by wiz21c »

cen4 wrote: post #43
immortal3 wrote: post #6

After the acquisition, I think Wiz would have to only focus on Google Cloud which might be a major limiting factor in the company's future. But other than that, It surprises me that, a $23B offer is rejected from the perspective of Employees. IPO won't provide the same level of liquidity opportunities. I have used Octa and it's a decent platform, not a magical one. Creating a similar platform for Google Cloud should…

Cause their founders are already Billionaires. Can you imagine Billionaires reporting to the average corporate robot at large corp?

Oh yes, I fancy that. Quite a lot actually. The joy of seeing equal humans.
Post reply on HN