Congrats to to the Wiz team. Wiz is amazing. But, ugh, joining Google will result in less competition and all that entails. Not great for customers.
It's a pity going public isn't worth it anymore.
dlev_pika 1 hours ago [-]
> will result in less competition
The system working as intended.
“Competition is for losers”
- Peter Thiel
tipiirai 12 minutes ago [-]
Thiel is an idiot
palmotea 3 minutes ago [-]
>> “Competition is for losers” - Peter Thiel
> Thiel is an idiot
Sounds more like he's selfish, perhaps to an unusual degree. Monopoly is great for the monopolist. For everyone else? Not so much.
Bombthecat 3 minutes ago [-]
But very rich...
999900000999 1 hours ago [-]
Someone else will rise to compete.
Then Google will buy them too.
SilverElfin 24 minutes ago [-]
The lack of competition is at this point choice American politicians and the voters. They should be breaking up mega corporations or at least taxing them at really high rates.
Instead, it looks like all the existing incumbents will just continue to rule over society. They have capital, monopolies, and the moats of distribution channels and contracts with their current customers. There is no fair competition - they’ll just replicate your clever product easily.
alephnerd 1 hours ago [-]
> It's a pity going public isn't worth it anymore.
Israeli VC is uninterested in IPOs in general - too much of an operational headache and it's difficult to exit a position quickly.
In most cases an IPO isn't worth it for founders because an IPO means you lose operational control. It's basically the "Rich versus Kings" dichotomy [0].
Edit: can't reply
> you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power
Investors do not like that - they want some degree of operational control in order to right the ship if needed.
In the early 2010s, IPOs like Tesla and Facebook were on terms that gave outside investors little control on operations and that's why Musk and even Zuckerberg to a certain extent can choose to reorient to a new boondoggle with little-to-no investor pushback.
In 2026 if you want to IPO, it will be on the terms of JPMC, GS, etc who are underwriting the IPO.
In a private company, it's easier for an investor to offload or get bought out of their position if the founder wants to maintain operational control.
> While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show
In publicly listed companies, it is magnitudes more difficult to build a board that is aligned with you at a personal level versus in a private company because both the board and strategic shareholders will act as checks against you.
> If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise
An acquisition happens when both the founders and investors want to exit, and has less operational overhead and due dilligence versus going thru the process of an IPO in the US.
> This is counterintuitive to me
Well, that's the reality. This is why Stripe, Databricks, and others have remained private for so long despite having hit IPO-level metrics years ago. If you're already generating high 9 to low 10 figures a year in revenue, you can remain private indefinetly and as a founder you would be able to give yourself a compensation package comparable to a public company, but with much less oversight and stress.
> In most cases an IPO isn't worth it for founders because an IPO means you lose operational control.
This is counterintuitive to me.
If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise.
With an IPO it seems like you have a better chance to retain control: you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power. While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show, at least until the board runs out of patience with bad earnings.
SilverElfin 22 minutes ago [-]
The problem is if you go public as a small company, it can be hard to survive. You need to meet expectations every time you do an earnings call or watch your stock get crushed, and it’ll never be given another chance. The burdens are also a lot higher in terms of the cost.
You don’t really see companies under $10 billion going public anymore. That may continue to be the case, but it’s terrible for entrepreneurs.
bojangleslover 4 minutes ago [-]
Didn’t this happen a long time ago?
tptacek 60 minutes ago [-]
This is the announcement of the completion of an acquisition that began a year ago.
debarshri 2 hours ago [-]
Google SecOps (Chronicle) is becoming quite popular among the cybersec world. I think eventually there should be an integration play. It is also a way to create wedge into AWS and Azure customers.
Is that the kind of integration you are refering to?
love2read 1 hours ago [-]
Extra shade thrown at MoltBook (listed first) which was recently acq by Meta.
StartupsWala 1 hours ago [-]
The interesting part is that Wiz built its success largely on being cloud-agnostic. If Google keeps it that way, it becomes a strategic window into AWS and Azure workloads.
If they don’t, they risk destroying the very advantage that made Wiz valuable in the first place.
vvpan 12 minutes ago [-]
No reactions beside: monopolies are bad for innovation and why we cannot have nice things. You might hear some people say "but these big companies innovate". They were mostly done innovating two decades ago, now they just snuff out innovation and acquisition is one of their main tools.
aerodog 4 minutes ago [-]
Wasn't this acquisition just a bit money laundering operation from Israel?
whobre 2 hours ago [-]
For a second I thought it was Woz who was joining Google…
giancarlostoro 1 hours ago [-]
Maybe someone typod in an email "I want you to buy woz" the i and o are next to each other on the keyboard. ;)
redbell 2 hours ago [-]
Wiz joins Waze & Waymo.. there's something suspicious with the letter W here :)
0_____0 1 hours ago [-]
Wiz and Waze are both Israeli companies. Not that suspicious, I think it probably just sounds better in Hebrew.
sokz 1 hours ago [-]
Wix too. Very interesting that founders of Waze and Wix have Unit 8200 pedigree and Wiz co-founder was part of an elite recruitment program in the IDF. On account of the mandatory draft, it was bound to happen but those three companies have very similar names as well.
alephnerd 1 hours ago [-]
Everyone in Israel who is entrepreneurial tries to self-select into 8200 - it's the equivalent of American high schoolers who want to enter VC and tech entrepreneurship targeting CS@Stanford.
In Israel, the university you attended matters less than the unit you served. For example, if you want to become a senior politician, you join Sayeret Matkal and if you want to become an academic you end up in Talpiot.
8200s success is largely due to a couple early exits by 8200 alums (Gili Raanan, Nir Zuk, Shlomo Kramer) who were biased in recruiting from their unit. 8200 alums aren't better or worse than other Israelis - they just have a better network.
And Israel has multiple SIGINT and offensive/defensive cybersecurity units, all of whom created similar networks as well.
sokz 59 minutes ago [-]
Network effects wasn't what I considered although I should have.
alephnerd 57 minutes ago [-]
It's the same in the US as well - if you join the right divisions and units and take advantage of educational programs with the GI Bill, you will open a lot of doors professionally speaking.
bigyabai 48 minutes ago [-]
I'm sure the Room 641A employees have an excellent professional network, but I'm still going to judge them on a personal level.
darth_aardvark 1 hours ago [-]
Unlikely, since modern Hebrew doesn't have a letter for "w".
bonesss 58 minutes ago [-]
Is it possible the foreignness makes ‘W’ appealing as it signals cool modern tech alignment or something?
Like how ‘X’ attracts marketing and typographic knuckle-draggers in English, or how all our AI companies have butthole logos for reasons that only make sense if you understand the underlying companies and culture.
0_____0 26 minutes ago [-]
Oof, you got me there!
JoshTriplett 2 hours ago [-]
They could put up a page for all three acquisitions, under "www".
paxys 18 minutes ago [-]
RIP Wave
1 hours ago [-]
xnorswap 2 hours ago [-]
W = Winners, it's just science ;)
I bet someone has actually studied the effect of leading letters in startup names and funding & acquisitions, I vaguely seem to remember a story about it in the past.
yomismoaqui 54 minutes ago [-]
Also wankers, just saying...
kps 1 hours ago [-]
Title should be: Wiz Waz
pbiggar 1 hours ago [-]
Good time to remember that Wiz' VC was accused of paying bribes to CISOs to buy their portfolio's software (of which Wiz is one).
> Two security executives told Forbes they rejected overtures from Raanan’s team after hearing about the firm’s “menu” of compensation. “I was completely aghast. It was against my principles,” one said.
PunchTornado 2 hours ago [-]
I don't understand Google's play here. Does it want Wiz to be a unique offer for GCP customers? or they will keep it cloud agnostic?
jcims 2 hours ago [-]
Wiz customer here, when fully implemented it provides an incredibly detailed and comprehensive view of your infrastructure.
I'm curious how much of that information is going to pass between Wiz and Google Cloud product/sales. It's effectively x-ray vision into some huge workloads running on their competitors.
torginus 1 hours ago [-]
Is this like Darktrace?
Apparently the cybersec bigwigs at our company love it, but for me I have to write a detailed explaination why another 'incident report' the clueless cybersecurity guys keep bothering me with is actually nonsense.
alephnerd 1 hours ago [-]
Nope. Darktrace is crap verging on fraud. Wiz actually solves tangible CSPM and runtime issues.
rabidonrails 1 hours ago [-]
>>It's effectively x-ray vision into some huge workloads running on their competitors.
I wonder if there are antitrust lawyers watching this closely. Would be really interesting to get their perspective on this.
raw_anon_1111 2 hours ago [-]
Thats the entire purpose, the reality is that large corporations are increasingly “multi cloud” and Google wants to have an offering for them and for companies that are on AWS and Azure to be able to move some of their workloads to GCP.
AWS and GCP also made a joint announcement about multi cloud networking for a similar reason
Probably a diversification play and a play to see out bigger contracts. If you've worked in the FEDRamp space, you may be aware that Wiz (last a checked, a year or so ago) is one of the few and possibly ownly player certified to operate in FedRAMP Medium/High deployments operating with the technology it does (eBPF instrumentation).
scottyah 60 minutes ago [-]
Google has really been expanding into DoD lately. I think they're realizing it's a large part of why AWS is so big and Azure is still alive.
tw04 2 hours ago [-]
>or they will keep it cloud agnostic?
They grossly overpaid if they aren't keeping it cloud agnostic. It's impressive software, but if it's only compatible with GCP it will not survive in this space.
aberoham 2 hours ago [-]
I'm really hoping this means GCP Security Command Center quickly gets subsumed by Wiz
htrp 2 hours ago [-]
you mean there will now be three products instead of two
Google Security Center
Wiz
Google Agentic Wiz Security
cmrdporcupine 2 hours ago [-]
If you think Google is capable of making a singular coherent decision on a topic like this, you're dreaming. There's likely multiple competing visions.
That said: the goal with Google M&A remains the same as always. Take competition off the board. I don't know this company or how they compete with Google, but 80% chance that's the play.
They are culturally incapable of merging other people's tech into their own stack and have both the tendency to rewrite everything from scratch on their own bespoke technologies and also internal engineering teams that will bristle at having a foreign body invade their cathedral.
You could say it would be talent acquisition but most everyone who comes from a startup walks as soon as their golden handcuffs loosen and they can find something else to do. Going from startup to Google is usually torturous.
Been through this 15 years ago. I don't think anything has changed.
breppp 28 minutes ago [-]
> goal with Google M&A remains the same as always. Take competition off the board. I don't know this company or how they compete with Google, but 80% chance that's the play
I don't think that's true here (what is the competing google product exactly?) or generally in cloud acquisitions, that generally buy into their platform missing features
cmrdporcupine 24 minutes ago [-]
It's true that Cloud has behaved a bit different from Classic Google
newsclues 2 hours ago [-]
Make it easy to use google cloud and plug into google ai
Alex3917 2 hours ago [-]
Not to be confused with Google’s existing product called Wiz.
jsheard 2 hours ago [-]
Or the Wiz IoT company, which seems like something Google might assimilate into Nest, but they didn't.
jtmetcalfe 28 minutes ago [-]
I thought so too at first, which would make sense as Nest does everything except lighting...
pwr22 2 hours ago [-]
Or the GP2X Wiz handheld (which will be forever what comes to mind first for me )
lol
Let me tell you something even more worrying, Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft already have larger engineering centers in Israel than most of Europe.
And over 90% of their workers served in the IDF! And many more in Israeli Intelligence! and they're also mostly Jewish!
Spooky stuff, our ads will never be safe now
perks_12 11 minutes ago [-]
Can you take your racist slop elsewhere? This community is about tech.
weatherlite 1 hours ago [-]
Link doesn't work
pbiggar 59 minutes ago [-]
It seems to be working for me.
klyonrad 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
dttze 1 hours ago [-]
[dead]
napolux 2 hours ago [-]
Congrats!
flipped 52 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
kolanos 1 hours ago [-]
Didn't this happen a year ago? [0] Or did this deal just take a year?
It's a pity going public isn't worth it anymore.
The system working as intended.
“Competition is for losers” - Peter Thiel
> Thiel is an idiot
Sounds more like he's selfish, perhaps to an unusual degree. Monopoly is great for the monopolist. For everyone else? Not so much.
Then Google will buy them too.
Instead, it looks like all the existing incumbents will just continue to rule over society. They have capital, monopolies, and the moats of distribution channels and contracts with their current customers. There is no fair competition - they’ll just replicate your clever product easily.
Israeli VC is uninterested in IPOs in general - too much of an operational headache and it's difficult to exit a position quickly.
In most cases an IPO isn't worth it for founders because an IPO means you lose operational control. It's basically the "Rich versus Kings" dichotomy [0].
Edit: can't reply
> you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power
Investors do not like that - they want some degree of operational control in order to right the ship if needed.
In the early 2010s, IPOs like Tesla and Facebook were on terms that gave outside investors little control on operations and that's why Musk and even Zuckerberg to a certain extent can choose to reorient to a new boondoggle with little-to-no investor pushback.
In 2026 if you want to IPO, it will be on the terms of JPMC, GS, etc who are underwriting the IPO.
In a private company, it's easier for an investor to offload or get bought out of their position if the founder wants to maintain operational control.
> While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show
In publicly listed companies, it is magnitudes more difficult to build a board that is aligned with you at a personal level versus in a private company because both the board and strategic shareholders will act as checks against you.
> If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise
An acquisition happens when both the founders and investors want to exit, and has less operational overhead and due dilligence versus going thru the process of an IPO in the US.
> This is counterintuitive to me
Well, that's the reality. This is why Stripe, Databricks, and others have remained private for so long despite having hit IPO-level metrics years ago. If you're already generating high 9 to low 10 figures a year in revenue, you can remain private indefinetly and as a founder you would be able to give yourself a compensation package comparable to a public company, but with much less oversight and stress.
[0] - https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=38550
This is counterintuitive to me.
If you’re acquired, you’re giving up ownership and you tend to lose operational control unless you have agreements in place that say otherwise.
With an IPO it seems like you have a better chance to retain control: you can control the share allocations going into an IPO to give you solid voting power. While you’re accountable to a board of directors and theoretically accountable to stockholders, in reality management often runs the show, at least until the board runs out of patience with bad earnings.
You don’t really see companies under $10 billion going public anymore. That may continue to be the case, but it’s terrible for entrepreneurs.
Is that the kind of integration you are refering to?
If they don’t, they risk destroying the very advantage that made Wiz valuable in the first place.
In Israel, the university you attended matters less than the unit you served. For example, if you want to become a senior politician, you join Sayeret Matkal and if you want to become an academic you end up in Talpiot.
8200s success is largely due to a couple early exits by 8200 alums (Gili Raanan, Nir Zuk, Shlomo Kramer) who were biased in recruiting from their unit. 8200 alums aren't better or worse than other Israelis - they just have a better network.
And Israel has multiple SIGINT and offensive/defensive cybersecurity units, all of whom created similar networks as well.
Like how ‘X’ attracts marketing and typographic knuckle-draggers in English, or how all our AI companies have butthole logos for reasons that only make sense if you understand the underlying companies and culture.
I bet someone has actually studied the effect of leading letters in startup names and funding & acquisitions, I vaguely seem to remember a story about it in the past.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2024/10/28/this-vc-b...
> Two security executives told Forbes they rejected overtures from Raanan’s team after hearing about the firm’s “menu” of compensation. “I was completely aghast. It was against my principles,” one said.
I'm curious how much of that information is going to pass between Wiz and Google Cloud product/sales. It's effectively x-ray vision into some huge workloads running on their competitors.
Apparently the cybersec bigwigs at our company love it, but for me I have to write a detailed explaination why another 'incident report' the clueless cybersecurity guys keep bothering me with is actually nonsense.
I wonder if there are antitrust lawyers watching this closely. Would be really interesting to get their perspective on this.
AWS and GCP also made a joint announcement about multi cloud networking for a similar reason
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery...
They grossly overpaid if they aren't keeping it cloud agnostic. It's impressive software, but if it's only compatible with GCP it will not survive in this space.
Google Security Center Wiz Google Agentic Wiz Security
That said: the goal with Google M&A remains the same as always. Take competition off the board. I don't know this company or how they compete with Google, but 80% chance that's the play.
They are culturally incapable of merging other people's tech into their own stack and have both the tendency to rewrite everything from scratch on their own bespoke technologies and also internal engineering teams that will bristle at having a foreign body invade their cathedral.
You could say it would be talent acquisition but most everyone who comes from a startup walks as soon as their golden handcuffs loosen and they can find something else to do. Going from startup to Google is usually torturous.
Been through this 15 years ago. I don't think anything has changed.
I don't think that's true here (what is the competing google product exactly?) or generally in cloud acquisitions, that generally buy into their platform missing features
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz
Here's my full thread on it: https://x.com/paulbiggar/status/1902329587050148068
And over 90% of their workers served in the IDF! And many more in Israeli Intelligence! and they're also mostly Jewish!
Spooky stuff, our ads will never be safe now
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518