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Google closes deal to acquire Wiz
Previously: Google to buy Wiz for $32B - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 - March 2025 (845 comments)
- napolux 6mo agoCongrats!
- Alex3917 6mo agoNot to be confused with Google’s existing product called Wiz.
- jsheard 6mo agoOr the Wiz IoT company, which seems like something Google might assimilate into Nest, but they didn't.
- pwr22 6mo agoOr the GP2X Wiz handheld (which will be forever what comes to mind first for me ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GP2X_Wiz
- jtmetcalfe 6mo agoI thought so too at first, which would make sense as Nest does everything except lighting...
- Arainach 6mo agoI'd argue an internal framework isn't a "product", but the confusion is real.
- PunchTornado 6mo agoI 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?
- d4mi3n 6mo agoProbably 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 6mo agoGoogle 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.
- aberoham 6mo agoI'm really hoping this means GCP Security Command Center quickly gets subsumed by Wiz
- htrp 6mo agoyou mean there will now be three products instead of two Google Security Center Wiz Google Agentic Wiz Security
- tw04 6mo 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.
- raw_anon_1111 6mo agoThats 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 https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery/aws-and-google-cloud-collaborate-to-simplify-multicloud-networking/ https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/networking-and-content-delivery...
- debarshri 6mo agoGoogle 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.
- hexfish 6mo agoThere already is an integration with SecOps: https://www.wiz.io/integrations/google-security-operations https://www.wiz.io/integrations/google-security-operations and https://docs.cloud.google.com/chronicle/docs/soar/marketplace-integrations/wiz https://docs.cloud.google.com/chronicle/docs/soar/marketplac... Is that the kind of integration you are refering to?
- toomuchtodo 6mo agoThese offerings are to pull customers to GCP. That is what Google is paying for because they couldn't get the traction organically. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337644 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337644
- XCSme 6mo ago[flagged]
- jtmetcalfe 6mo agoI thought it was about home automation at first https://www.wizconnected.com/ https://www.wizconnected.com/
- mkehrt 6mo agoSame--I was worried my lightbulbs might be deprecated!
- redbell 6mo agoWiz joins Waze & Waymo.. there's something suspicious with the letter W here :)
- JoshTriplett 6mo agoThey could put up a page for all three acquisitions, under "www".
- xnorswap 6mo agoW = 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 6mo agoAlso wankers, just saying...
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- 0_____0 6mo agoWiz and Waze are both Israeli companies. Not that suspicious, I think it probably just sounds better in Hebrew.
- darth_aardvark 6mo agoUnlikely, since modern Hebrew doesn't have a letter for "w".
- bonesss 6mo agoIs 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.
- whobre 6mo agoFor a second I thought it was Woz who was joining Google…
- giancarlostoro 6mo agoMaybe someone typod in an email "I want you to buy woz" the i and o are next to each other on the keyboard. ;)
- duckmysick 6mo agoI thought it was WiZ of the lightbulbs fame. Figured they were going all in their smart home approach. But yeah, the other Wiz makes more sense.
- seanieb 6mo agoCongrats 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.
- 999900000999 6mo agoSomeone else will rise to compete. Then Google will buy them too.
- alephnerd 6mo ago> It's a pity going public isn't worth it anymore. Israeli VCs tend to be 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. > Interesting, why is this more true of Israeli VC's as opposed to VC's in other markets Significantly less capital. "Big" funds like YL Ventures, Cyberstarts, and JVP only have an AUM of $800M, $1.4B, and $1.9B respectively. And if you were going to IPO in the US anyhow, why would you even invest in an Israeli fund, which wouldn't have enough people with experience for an IPO. And the handful of Israeli IPOs that happened like SentinelOne or CyberArk weren't that successful. [0] - https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=38550 https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=38550
- kolanos 6mo agoDidn't this happen a year ago? [0] Or did this deal just take a year? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518
- eloisant 6mo agoDid you read the article? First line: "Nearly a year ago, we shared that Wiz would be joining Google."
- SoberSky 6mo agoWho reads articles these days?
- officeplant 6mo agoJust the bots so that HN posters can ask them for slop replies to stuff they don't understand.
- pbiggar 6mo agoAs I mentioned at the time, the Wiz acquisition is the largest transfer of Israeli intelligence operatives into Big Tech in history. Here's my full thread on it: https://x.com/paulbiggar/status/1902329587050148068 https://x.com/paulbiggar/status/1902329587050148068
- klyonrad 6mo ago[dead]
- dttze 6mo ago[dead]
- weatherlite 6mo agoLink doesn't work
- pbiggar 6mo agoIt seems to be working for me.
- breppp 6mo agolol 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
- shilgapira 6mo agoOy vey! You've got to love how spewing such casual bigotry against random people doesn't ring any alarm bells for people like this Paul person. I'm sure he considers himself a "progressive" lol.
- 6mo ago
- love2read 6mo agoExtra shade thrown at MoltBook (listed first) which was recently acq by Meta.
- pbiggar 6mo agoGood time to remember that Wiz' VC was accused of paying bribes to CISOs to buy their portfolio's software (of which Wiz is one). https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2024/10/28/this-vc-built-a-cybersecurity-unicorn-machine-then-came-his-conflict-of-interest-mess/ 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.
- StartupsWala 6mo agoThe 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.
- antonvs 6mo agoGoogle has quite a bit of support for other clouds already. The managed Kubernetes in Gcloud can run workloads on other clouds, for example.
- verdverm 6mo agoThey all pretty much support cloud agnostic WIF any which way at this point. With that out of the way, the rest gets easier.
- eitally 6mo agoThey very likely will continue being cloud-agnostic, just like they did with Mandiant Consulting.
- tptacek 6mo agoThis is the announcement of the completion of an acquisition that began a year ago.
- tomhow 6mo agoGoogle to buy Wiz for $32B - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 - March 2025 (845 comments)
- flipped 6mo ago[dead]
- vvpan 6mo agoNo 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.
- mainecoder 6mo agowell if you are waiting for the monopolies to be broken don't wait they will not be broken monopolies are here to stay, capitalistism for the rich and socialism also for the rich they best thing you can do is be rich yourself
- aerodog 6mo agoWasn't this acquisition just a bit money laundering operation from Israel?
- yoavm 6mo agoNope, but you might want to check your sources if that's what you've been told.
- cbHXBY1D 6mo agoWe'll never know but it's quite likely that is the case: https://updates.techforpalestine.org/wiz-and-google-the-deal-that-wasnt/ https://updates.techforpalestine.org/wiz-and-google-the-deal...
- bojangleslover 6mo agoDidn’t this happen a long time ago?
- cimi_ 6mo agoIt was announced almost a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43398518 But it was subject to regulatory approval, that's been completed now.
- 85392_school 6mo agoThis isn't a new observation [0] but this means Google will now have two Wizes, since Wiz is also the name of their internal web framework [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43399077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43399077 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41092039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41092039
- holografix 6mo agoWhich is basically a way to do React without it being React
- myth_drannon 6mo agoInteresting fact regarding the sale. Because the founders are about to receive $2.4B US, Israeli tax authorities got involved, and the tax on the sale as an exception will be paid in US dollars directly without converting to shekels due to concerns it might crash the US/NIS exchange rate (with $US already historically low).
- love2read 6mo agoInteresting, where did you hear about this?
- myth_drannon 6mo agohttps://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjggcekq11g https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjggcekq11g
- hollow-moe 6mo agoJoins the graveyard in 6 months tops
- shredswap 6mo agowe don't need to be pessimistic about every other thing.
- sen 6mo agoWhen it comes to Google it’s not being pessimistic, it’s just being realistic.
- kartakrak 6mo ago6 months is even generous and optimistic
- ex-aws-dude 6mo agoIts boring though? Pessimism is so lame and uninteresting for discussions
- RobRivera 6mo agoAre you not entertained?
- holdomanoovr 6mo ago[dead]
- miltava 6mo agoMaybe for most of their acquisitions (but I don’t know). But they do get acquisitions right: YouTube, android, double click, Waze…
- eitally 6mo agoAnd more relevant, Mandiant.
- sass_muffin 6mo agoAre they going to call it G-Wiz?
- toephu2 6mo agoGreat company, bad name. Pretty sure the company name was chosen by a non-native English speaker since it's an Israeli company after all. Sort of like Wix... Wix also an Israeli company with an odd sounding name (although better then Wiz).
- whyage 6mo agoWhat's wrong with the name Wiz?
- zxexz 6mo agoNothing wrong with Google taking a Wiz
- girvo 6mo agoWhizz is onomatopoeia (well, ish) for urinating in English
- ahofmann 6mo agoAnd "Witz" means "joke" in german.
- tw-20260303-001 6mo agoYeah, but it’s pronounced differently. Germans are bad at English pronunciation. A couple of examples: BBQ ~> „barbicue”, Pampers ~> „pempas”.
- the_mitsuhiko 6mo agoWichs also means ejaculate. Wix even had an ad where they made fun on “wichser” (Masturbator) on German TV.
- normie3000 6mo agoBilly Whizz is rhyming slang for Jimmy Riddle.
- 6mo ago
- ge96 6mo agoWhat is that animation of the cloud on their home page, tapping and blocking a cloud
- desolate_muffin 6mo agoI don't know, but it makes me uncomfortable
- jerojero 6mo agoGetting old is seeing every single successful platform be bought out by one of the big ones.
- lanthissa 6mo agotheres a famous painting about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_Devouring_His_Son
- jodrellblank 6mo agoThat, but in Corporate Memphis tech-company art style https://jemima.design.blog/2021/02/08/generic-tech-company-art-style-woman-devouring-her-son/ https://jemima.design.blog/2021/02/08/generic-tech-company-a...
- chii 6mo ago> successful platform be bought out by one of the big ones. everything has a price.
- cbHXBY1D 6mo agoFYI, Wiz investor and current Wiz board member Gili Raanan, head of Israeli VC Cyberstarts, has been (credibly) accused of paying bribes to major CISOs for buying software from their portfolio companies like Wiz. Calcalist did a deep investigation into it: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1a1jn00hc https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/b1a1jn00hc
- Apofis 6mo agoToo late now!
- cubicmeter 6mo ago:)
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- love2read 6mo ago[flagged]
- supsep2 6mo agoMostly due to genocide
- TitaRusell 6mo agoIsrael is not an ethnicity. They still have 25% Arab Israelis- a leftover from the days when the founders were still building a secular European style country. They treat them as second class ofcourse. And it is essentially a manageable minority- they are politically sidelined in the Knesset.
- bigyabai 6mo agoIsrael garnered a reputation for giving safe harbor to legally spurious businesses like NSO Group.
- PunchyHamster 6mo agoAny bets on when it hits https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ ? I give it 5 years
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- dschn 6mo agowhy do this when they sold the domain business to squarespace?
- nineteen999 6mo ago> to help every organization protect everything they build and run. > See how the Wiz protects cloud environments from code to runtime. So long as "everything" everybody runs is "in the cloud", huh? Not even remotely true in the real world.
- Illniyar 6mo agoApparently Israeli media is reporting that the price is so high that the government is requesting the founders will pay their taxes in USD and not Israeli Shekels in fear that such a large foreign exchange transaction will affect the exchange rate. ( Which is already unusually low and hurting exporters) This would be the first time taxes are paid in a different currency in Israel history. Pretty wild that it's such a large acquisition it can affect a nation's monetary policy.
- spondyl 6mo agoI was curious about this claim and dug up this article from (as far as I understand it), Israel's version of The Economist https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjggcekq11g https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/hjggcekq11g
- beagle3 6mo agoThe name “Calcalist” is indeed a play on “Economist” (it is not a proper Hebrew word, but fuses the Hebrew word for economy “calcala” with the English suffix for a professional work “ist”. However, it is just an expanded version of Ynet’s business/economy section, and Ynet is probably the closest equivalent to USA Today or The Sun.
- aitchnyu 6mo agoIs it etymologically related to "calculate" or is it a coincidence?
- beagle3 6mo agoSeems to be a coincidence - the Hebrew word comes from the Bible (old testament), and means "the feeding, and generally providing of needs". The English word comes from "calculus", meaning, apparently, pebble, because original counting was done with pebbles. (I had to look both up. Thanks for asking)
- marijan_div 6mo ago5 Years later - "Google to shut down Wiz"
- Thanakorn_551 6mo agoHow am I supposed to feel about this news? I don't know, sometimes I just don't understand.
- z3t4 6mo agoThis is starting to look like the emperors new clothes.
- ClaudeAgent_WK 6mo ago[flagged]
- compsciphd 6mo agoAfter alphabet demoted waze from being an independent company and turned it into part of google's overall maps organization, alphabet needed another israeli company to take over the W spot.
- h4kunamata 6mo agoI mean, good on the cofunders, they will never see that much money again in their lives. But companies who uses Wiz.io know that Wiz is dead as of now. Google will merge it into its cloud platform and slowly stop supporting AWS, Azure. Things never change, only company's name change.