alexawarrior (u/alexawarrior)

alexawarrior commented on Spying on a smartphone remotely by the authorities: feasibility and operation security.stackexchange.co... · Posted by u/joebiden2

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

Any broadband chip since 3G ships with proprietary drivers which have backdoors. I tried to build an open phone, worked for one of the major telcos, and could never get around the driver issue in trying to make an open phone.

BUT sophisticated attackers like US or Israeli governments (and I assume Russian or Chinese but I don’t have direct experience with these) don’t need these backdoors, getting anywhere near your phone is enough to root it to allow installation of spyware, according to my CSO who worked in naval intelligence. There are simply too many vulnerabilities for there to be a hardened device in the consumer space. Some are better than others (Apple) but as Bruce Schneier says, if you are worried about this sort of thing you really have to be totally disconnected from the internet and exchange encrypted physical media.

alexawarrior commented on Raytheon asks retirees for help making new Stinger anti-air missiles popsci.com/technology/sti... · Posted by u/blinding-streak

vsskanth · 2 years ago

I think the issue here is more about finding someone with security clearance (labor shortage) rather than the know how.

I would assume a company like Raytheon has all their processes documented and can quickly spin up a new manufacturing line for a legacy product.

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

“I would assume a company like Raytheon has all their processes documented and can quickly spin up a new manufacturing line for a legacy product.”

As someone who has worked in this field, I almost spewed coffee out my nose. Thanks for the chuckles.

alexawarrior commented on The other fruit company, Apricot abortretry.fail/p/the-oth... · Posted by u/BirAdam

qingcharles · 2 years ago

The Victor 9000 (aka Sirius 1) was an absolutely fantastic PC, ahead of its time and killed off by (mostly) lack of IBM compatibility.

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

IBM pioneered the “embrace, extend and extinguish” approach to using their monopoly in mainframes to kill off competition in PCs. Intel and Microsoft then took over as monopolists after the consent decree restricted IBM. These were then restricted by the US government as well: AMD was founded with assistance from the US military to allow Intel chips to meet dual-source requirements, and the federal settlement with Microsoft saved Apple from oblivion.

Our current generation of monopolists - Google, Meta, Oracle, Amazon, and still Apple - will they likewise be taken down by government anti-monopoly efforts or allowed to continue indefinitely like major banks? We shall see.

alexawarrior commented on The other fruit company, Apricot abortretry.fail/p/the-oth... · Posted by u/BirAdam

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

After twenty years the founders made out with tens of millions, for a company that was ultimately entirely worthless, and whose employees were all laid off. Perhaps some of the former factory workers ended up on the dole. Capitalism in a nutshell.

alexawarrior commented on DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash finance.yahoo.com/news/di... · Posted by u/demuis

drc500free · 2 years ago

It's kind of like going to vegas for a week and coming out with a lot of good stories and 90% of your money.

In terms of investor return, I think it's healthy to have some exits like this. A bunch of the money was only in for 2 years, and probably doubled their investment in that time. The rest of the investors got their money back, with something close to NASDAQ returns on top of it. If this was the baseline for the fund instead of going to zero, you wouldn't need unicorns and the questionable growth tactics that go with them.

If founders had 25%, they got "retirement with reasonable luxuries" or "gunpowder to play investor" money of double digit $millions.

If 20-25 employees split an option pool of 15%, it's close to replacing the FAANG opportunity cost.

So totally agree that it's a bit of a "meh" outcome in comparison to financial alternatives, and the pie splitting matters a lot. But it didn't go to zero, and everyone is within a stone's throw of their stock market / FAANG hurdle rates (and it's not like that FAANG career is guaranteed for people who thrive better at startups). And the stories and experiences are a hell of a lot better.

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

Without insider knowledge of the transaction, it is impossible to say what the returns were for various tranches of investment or for the founders or employees.

alexawarrior commented on DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash finance.yahoo.com/news/di... · Posted by u/demuis

incahoots · 2 years ago

I recall this was one of the plots from the HBO show Silicon Valley

Thanks for providing insight to the process, very fascinating.

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

Hard to watch, not only because it rang so true, but also because I've known people personally who gave their all to the company and when it didn't work out in the end, commit suicide. It's a cautionary tale of putting your entire self concept into your startup / employer.

alexawarrior commented on DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash finance.yahoo.com/news/di... · Posted by u/demuis

popcorncowboy · 2 years ago

Common getting zero makes sense if pref holders had liquidation multiples ("we get 3x our investment back first"), but not if they converted to common, unless their conversion to common had some weird mechanic attached to it that massively diluted the remaining common down to effectively zero % (which sounds sue-able). I'm really curious about the mechanics of how your common holding netted out to zero if prefs also converted to common?

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

Yes so what happened is they converted, then had majority common, then voted to recapitalize and sell, after which recapitalization they made out with a profit but common got nothing. The problem with this legally was they didn't have the right to convert without a common vote beforehand, essentially they did it in reverse order. Their leverage was the company was not cash flow positive (in no small part because of the massive management fees the VC loaded on as part of funding), and so needed funding to continue. They also offered the existing board members a $1m bonus as part of post-sale consulting (essentially a legal bribe) as part of agreeing to the sale. It's all not technically legal, but you know the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules.

Because of the settlement terms I'm not able to name the VC, but I can tell you this kind of behavior is by no means unique to this VC, in fact it's rather de rigueur for the VC and PE worlds. It's even defensible in a way, they owe fiduciary duty to their limited partners, NOT to the common shareholders of the company they invest in.

I currently advise startups seeking financing to either a) only go the VC route if you think you're in megagrowth into the next dropbox et. all or b) you have enough self/family wealth to take VC investment on favorable terms ala stripe.

alexawarrior commented on DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash finance.yahoo.com/news/di... · Posted by u/demuis

y7 · 2 years ago

If you want to share some more (approximate) numbers, I'm very curious. What equity percentage did you have at the start? And were your shares worth more at an earlier investment round than at the exit?

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

Starting equity was a little less than 10%. Valuations went up as several rounds were raised up to $30+m and share value went up until at one point it was north of $20m paper dollars. After market re-valuation an additional $60+m was raised and value went down a little but was still substantial. Then the IPO market all but disappeared. Final sale price was around $150m and common shareholders including myself initially received zero. Essentially the VCs converted their preferred to common and then voted to sell to a related party (another company the same VC firm had invested in).

According to a lawyer who setup our initial investments, this was actually illegal so common investors including myself sued, but was this bankrolled by one of the big early investors as it's incredibly expensive to try and do a shareholder lawsuit against a major VC firm and investment bank. It ended up being settled out of court and that's where my $100,000 came from. The CEO came out a little better, but people who sweated years (and I mean frequent all nighters, weekends, true dedication) ended up with even less than me. And the only reason we even received anything at all was because we had a HNWI common investor who also got screwed and backed the lawsuit, they ended up getting their money back and a small return on investment from what I remember of the settlement terms.

Just a word of caution to founders and early employees of startups to know what they are getting in to and the typical case of what happens (a small or non existent exit is the typical case in a tech startup), even when you see those big number raises and a big sale and you just assume that everyone is making bank.

alexawarrior commented on DigitalOcean acquires Paperspace (YC W15) for $111M in cash finance.yahoo.com/news/di... · Posted by u/demuis

moneywoes · 2 years ago

Roughly how much would the founders net

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

It's a private transaction, so it's unknown and unless it's leaked out we are unlikely to ever know. There was a startup I was co-founder of at one point, and seven years later (about the same age as Paperspace) we sold for a similar amount, and the net of my shares was a little over $100,000. The CEO got more, other early joiners less. And among my direct knowledge of individuals in the startup community, this is not an unusual case, but rather typical. Many times companies are sold but the money goes primarily to the venture capitalists. Even seed and early round investors can get minimal or no returns after later dilution after a sale.

The "20%" case is typically the best case that happens only in the 1/10,000 chance of extreme fast growth into a new behemoth, OR where the founders are already high net worth individuals or come from high net worth families, and can provide their own money in conjunction with VCs instead of relying on them for most capital.

Because this is all private and not discussed, we tend to only hear of the very exceptional cases, and ignore the vast majority of the non-lottery winners in the startup world.

alexawarrior commented on Can the stock market go to zero? afrugaldoctor.com/home/ma... · Posted by u/XxDeathManxX

alexawarrior · 2 years ago

“It would, in fact, take a catastrophic event involving the total dissolution of the US government and economic system for this to occur.”

As Hamlet would say, aye, there’s the rub. Economic collapse is actually far more frequent than is commonly believed, here survivorship bias of the US economy plays a staring role.

In the past century Chinese and Russian investments went to zero, not just stock but land, businesses, private property, it all went to zero. This is the largest country by land area and the largest by population. Given the average lifespan of empires is around 250 years, and the USA is going to be that soon in 2026, it may be even more likely.

Mathematically, do you believe perpetual growth in stock values and in concomitant asset inequality is feasible or even possible? Dubito ergo sum.