Cloudflare is one of those companies similar to palantir where the valuation just makes you scratch your head. But bringing in AI to try and fill out the AI valuation makes some sense I suppose
I wrote this comment [0] very recently and when I wrote it had in mind that Cloudflare might very well end up being a key player in a more centralized Internet that has developed far away from its original architecture.
Defense against threats is a pretty strong centralization incentive in different kinds of networks - social, biological.
I could imagine that a lot of people are investing based on similar scenarios in their minds.
Joining the big three requires capital investments orders of magnitude beyond where they are. Nevertheless I'd like to see someone do it, and if not Equinix then it could be them. But sadly the #4 right now appears to be Oracle.
I havent looked into the financials but the reasons I really like cloudflare is that its workers are free without card for 100k and even after that its ridiculously cheap and cloudflare tunnels and a lot of features are free and really appreciate it
I feel like people like to rub that one time cloudflare messed up when I mention it but it was a gambling website and I feel like cloudflare could've better communicated it but overall its got so much less drama than the other cloud providers and its genuinely being really nice imo
But imo, cloudflare is really dirt cheap for just starting out and at scale as well especially if using cf workers
I feel like cloudflare can make a bank in enterprice section but their pricing model also feels the most saner compared to the shady tactics used by google or others with our marketing and privacy
I know that the internet is getting centralized but I feel like there are some ways of de-centralizing it, (by example archiving web pages and then seeding them, helping on internet archive or something similar as well)
As an internet user, cf feels mid but sometimes as a guy who just wants to deploy shit or basic apis, I "vibe coded" a cloudflare worker api which I actively use so much for my own purposes setting up a custom redirector and everything without paying anything at all, I think I like it.
Honestly, nothing is as good or as bad as it seems except palantir's evaluation which makes me feel like 448 pe ratio or something similar drove me nuts the other day.
Edit: Although I still stand with what I say, this comment has also aged like fine milk with cloudflare taking down aws,chatgpt and x and sooo many others that cloudflare outage had more upvotes on HN (if I am correct, I can be wrong tho, nothing new about it as well ) and thus more impact...
Honestly now the only stable provider which doesn't have an outage is google cloud in sick twisted fate
I am wishing when google cloud has its outage so I can recommend everybody to use hetzner (yes I know its not an apples to orange comparisons but hetzner has some crazy good uptime)
Cloudflare isn't solely a CDN anymore. CDN and DDOS-protection were the most logical "first" products to build based on their SDN ( Software Defined Networking).
A cloud is the next thing and there's a lot of money involved with the cloud. I see them as the only real competitor/challenger to Azure, AWS, GCE, ... because they aren't bound to regions ( less DevOps)
I'm not saying they're not an interesting company I'm just reflecting on their extraordinary valuation multiple which puts them in a unique league that are predominantly AI bets. Their founder is uniquely strong storyteller. If you look at their capital investment it's just not anywhere close to a top tier cloud player.. so while they offer some interesting building blocks it's just not clear that large workloads move there anytime soon
It's not a question of crazy or not, it's just an extreme end of the multiple spectrum.. and the company is not in a positive operating margin position. So you're right they have a strong track record and there's optimism they turn a profit, but it's highly speculative. Nothing wrong with that. Just makes sense they are fleshing out their AI story while they're in a position to invest with equity IMO
Well I'd assume the acquisition is with equity and that much of their employee compensation comes from equity, neither of which show up in a free cash flow view. Still you do make a good point. I'd have expected bigger capital costs that even if amortized would show up on cash flow some of the time.. but they appear to run a very tight capex ship. So more security SaaS than cloud provider IMO
This is not accurate.. ASML provides important parts of the stack but there are a variety of semiconductor equipment companies providing critical inputs
Cuts both ways as risks being similar to Theranos with former secretaries of state types on their board. As was pointed out of the time the big question was who was on the science board and I think the same question applies here
Has anyone actually seen verification? (other than lot's and lot's of press release type collateral I don't see any evidence of anyone publicly stating that they work for this company. The press releases claim they have 50 employees many of whom were experienced frok semiconductor equipment companies but can anyone actually put their hand up and claim to be one of those people? Also the list of companies is a little suspicious as if designed to pass a sniff test for a naive audience and the careers page is particularly misaligned with what you would expect they're looking for. The only scientist they're hiring is an "AI" scientist?)
Until proof is actually given I just assume this is a pump and dump which is taking advantage both America First dollars and AI hype. The founder(s) have zero background in this area and while they could be savants, it seems doubtful. The whole background does not pass my sniff test, not to emntion all of their PR photos try to work in the American flag which is cool but something I would do if I was trying to pump it up.
Not only that... I would really have to see something tangible from a company that makes these kind of claims. ASML's technology is some of the most complex and advanced in the world and has it has taken decades to get there. Of course it is possible, but without something tangible to back up their claims, I think I will remain skeptical.
Also I'm sure there are university labs that can do similar things as ASML ... the bigger problem is doing it at scale in a repeatable way that can be sold as an actual product and also not infringing on ASML patents.
They are claiming 50 employees. I don't think that is anywhere near enough. I'd expect hundreds or even thousands of engineers are needed, and for every engineer there are a dozen of other support staff roles. ASML has 40,000 employees, but we can guess some are in other product areas (what I don't know). Let me know when they have had 10,000 employees for 5 years and I'll start believing it.
The founder is a known con artist involved in such other things as solving nuclear fusion and stealing $2.5M in a Kickstarter scam.
The cofounder is the founder’s brother and has literally zero documented professional or academic experience.
The company’s job postings are nonsensical and AI-generated.
The company is unwilling to evidence any of its (extremely extraordinary) claims, which have been made on a timescale that makes no sense in the context of the semiconductor industry.
The company’s research facility is, based on photographs that they’ve published, at least two orders of magnitude smaller than what would be necessary.
In theory but that's where the accounting games come in: how you choose to capitalize the expenses over what time horizon and how you recognize the returns are extremely relevant. While you might point out that there are commonly accepted accounting principles, you'll also note that people use all kinds of different approaches for different types of businesses were where they argue the commonly accepted model is not quite the right fit the shape of the business
To name a few but on hwy 101 today there were billboards for more
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