6 ms·

I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?

by lprd 4y ago

mynameisvlad 4y ago
Simple, they were bought by Zoom in 2020.
- dcchambers 4y ago
  It seems like it was actually the acquisition by Zoom that seems to have sent Keybase down this slow death march. It was obvious that the acquisition was in order to acquire the team to improve Zoom's own security posture, and they had no interest in the Keybase product itself. Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome. [^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
  - avree 4y ago
    well they had raised $10 million and burned through almost all of it so I'm not sure you can describe the acquisition that effectively saved their company as "sending them down a death march" however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
    - dcchambers 4y ago
      Oh yeah no arguments from me there, they were definitely burning through cash without a clear vision about where they were going to start making money. But had they not been acquired I am 100% positive they could have raised boatloads of more money in that crazy market from late 2020-early 2022.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    Keybase's life cycle basically turned me completely cynical for how tech startups work. It was a really cool idea, but they had zero plans from the start for sustainability. They were clearly just shooting for an acquisition to pay off the VC and founders, leaving the tech to die in the curb. Makes me sad. I recognize it's a common pattern since forever, but this was the first one I felt personally let down by.
    - howmayiannoyyou 4y ago
      100% on this. What made this sad was the mission of Keybase and its founder appears to have been b.s. in the face of enough zeroes on a check.
      - coldpie 4y ago
        Remember when they got roped into some lame cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme? Hahaha. The joys of having VC debt and no business model.
        blitzar 4y ago
        > in the face of enough zeroes on a check ... roped into some lame cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme It turns out the number of zeros required was zero.
        jcpham2 4y ago
        They air-dropped XLM Stellar Lumens A fork of Ripple XRP after Ripple was sold Same dude that did both ^ also created and sold MtGox (likely insolvent) to Mark Karpeles Need articbull to do all the citations on Jed/ripple/stellar and how keybase ended up having a stellar wallet
    - dcchambers 4y ago
      Holding out hope that Zoom will open-source the server side of things and perhaps let a foundation take over maintenance/ownership of Keybase. There's clearly value there, but yeah they need to find a way to make it sustainable.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    I mean, they basically said as much when they bought it. They didn't buy it for the product, they bought it for all the folks who bring a wealth of cryptography knowledge. This was also around the time that Zoom had a LOT of bad PR around privacy and spying on users, IIRC. That said, Zoom is the reason the lights are still on, even if not a lot of work is being done on the product. Keybase never really had a solid marketable product to begin with, so I honestly don't see it going down another way. They seemed to be entirely set up to get acquired at some point, regardless who or what their plans were.

I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?

by lprd 4y ago

I'm honestly surprised that keybase is still around. It's really cool what they've built, but how exactly are they keeping the lights on?

mynameisvlad 4y ago

Simple, they were bought by Zoom in 2020.

dcchambers 4y ago
It seems like it was actually the acquisition by Zoom that seems to have sent Keybase down this slow death march. It was obvious that the acquisition was in order to acquire the team to improve Zoom's own security posture, and they had no interest in the Keybase product itself. Since then, activity on the open source keybase repos has been minimal and they have not made any major product changes.^1,2 Basically just keeping the lights on. I give big props to the few folks at Zoom that are still pushing commits. Keybase is/was awesome. [^1]: https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors https://github.com/keybase/client/graphs/contributors [^2]: https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories https://github.com/orgs/keybase/repositories
- avree 4y ago
  well they had raised $10 million and burned through almost all of it so I'm not sure you can describe the acquisition that effectively saved their company as "sending them down a death march" however, it's clear you're right - Zoom doesn't prioritize the product.
  - dcchambers 4y ago
    Oh yeah no arguments from me there, they were definitely burning through cash without a clear vision about where they were going to start making money. But had they not been acquired I am 100% positive they could have raised boatloads of more money in that crazy market from late 2020-early 2022.
- coldpie 4y ago
  Keybase's life cycle basically turned me completely cynical for how tech startups work. It was a really cool idea, but they had zero plans from the start for sustainability. They were clearly just shooting for an acquisition to pay off the VC and founders, leaving the tech to die in the curb. Makes me sad. I recognize it's a common pattern since forever, but this was the first one I felt personally let down by.
  - howmayiannoyyou 4y ago
    100% on this. What made this sad was the mission of Keybase and its founder appears to have been b.s. in the face of enough zeroes on a check.
    - coldpie 4y ago
      Remember when they got roped into some lame cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme? Hahaha. The joys of having VC debt and no business model.
      - blitzar 4y ago
        > in the face of enough zeroes on a check ... roped into some lame cryptocurrency pump-and-dump scheme It turns out the number of zeros required was zero.
      - jcpham2 4y ago
        They air-dropped XLM Stellar Lumens A fork of Ripple XRP after Ripple was sold Same dude that did both ^ also created and sold MtGox (likely insolvent) to Mark Karpeles Need articbull to do all the citations on Jed/ripple/stellar and how keybase ended up having a stellar wallet
  - dcchambers 4y ago
    Holding out hope that Zoom will open-source the server side of things and perhaps let a foundation take over maintenance/ownership of Keybase. There's clearly value there, but yeah they need to find a way to make it sustainable.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  I mean, they basically said as much when they bought it. They didn't buy it for the product, they bought it for all the folks who bring a wealth of cryptography knowledge. This was also around the time that Zoom had a LOT of bad PR around privacy and spying on users, IIRC. That said, Zoom is the reason the lights are still on, even if not a lot of work is being done on the product. Keybase never really had a solid marketable product to begin with, so I honestly don't see it going down another way. They seemed to be entirely set up to get acquired at some point, regardless who or what their plans were.