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How Segment survived its brush with death to become a customer data unicorn

84 points by gwintrob 7y ago

CrackpotGonzo 7y ago
Surprised to see that mparticle isn’t listed as a competitor. I’ve seen what Salesforce is working on in this space and it’s nothing compared to mparticle and segment.
- mkatz0630 7y ago
  Thanks for the shout. Just wait to see what else is coming from us in the coming months...
  - nononono1 7y ago
    Fingerprint my anus you pig.
ajones05 7y ago
An abbreviated version of this story is included in this great post on how 22 now-successful companies got their first users/customers https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/how-to-get-first-customers/ https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/how-to-get-first-customer... (Segment, Tinder, Quora, Reddit, etc.)
jph 7y ago
Segment won developer mindshare because Peter and the team made a strong commitment to developer success. For my project, he came onsite to help me, then invited me back to HQ to meet the team, debrief, and share the roadmap. I have recommended Segment many times since then, and I'm stoked for the company's success.
teddyh 7y ago
Apparently user fingerprinting is where the money is. I note that the uMatrix web browser add-on blocks the entire domain of the company.
- nkrisc 7y ago
  Must be on one of those lists, because my pi-hole blocks it too. It's funny, just yesterday I was searching around for some server log analytics solutions for my site (settled on GoAccess for now) and they kept popping up in my search results. Never clicked on them though as the link descriptions made it clear they weren't what I was looking for.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Yep. The world would've been a better place if Segment had more than just a "brush" with death.
cyberferret 7y ago
The title is a bit misleading IMO. The company was in a state of flux before they pivoted and rebranded as Segment as far as I can read (when they had a different name). The actual company 'Segment' seems to have been on a great course of growth since then.
rshnotsecure 7y ago
This is a front company controlled by a foreign government in part. Their security / cloud team is made up of former Credit Karma engineers. In regards to Credit Karma, they are funded by Tiger Global Management. Tiger Global Management is quite an interesting company. Their SSL organization is currently on 16 million certs worldwide. With the 2nd most being in Russia and the 3rd most in Ukraine. This can be looked up right now on Shodan. Simply enter “Tiger Global Management, LLC”. I along with two reporters separately have reached out to them over the past 2-3 months. They have not responded to any comment or made any changes. Private equity firms are buying out hosting and domain registration companies en-masse. This is what happened during the .ORG. Ethol Capital is lol a fake company. They had 2 employees on LinkedIn as of a few weeks ago. Look at Mailgun.org btw which you might notice Segment uses (also recently acquired by private equity firm out of San Antonio). Exactly why does one of their DNS records point to Culliganwaterllc.com in Coeur De Alene, Idaho of all places? For god sakes these people were involved in a major hacking incident in April. This is not a theory so much as it is a collection of pressing questions that demand an explanation.
- noelwelsh 7y ago
  I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
  - eganist 7y ago
    Winding, conspiratorial comments like this that come with no evidence are usually better off flagged than anything else.
bobosha 7y ago
This is an all-too-common story with startups, as PG points out in several essays. Often startups only make sense looking back, and don't lend themselves to business-plans & analytics.

84 points by gwintrob 7y ago

Surprised to see that mparticle isn’t listed as a competitor. I’ve seen what Salesforce is working on in this space and it’s nothing compared to mparticle and segment.

mkatz0630 7y ago
Thanks for the shout. Just wait to see what else is coming from us in the coming months...
- nononono1 7y ago
  Fingerprint my anus you pig.

ajones05 7y ago

An abbreviated version of this story is included in this great post on how 22 now-successful companies got their first users/customers https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/how-to-get-first-customers/ https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/how-to-get-first-customer... (Segment, Tinder, Quora, Reddit, etc.)

jph 7y ago

Segment won developer mindshare because Peter and the team made a strong commitment to developer success. For my project, he came onsite to help me, then invited me back to HQ to meet the team, debrief, and share the roadmap. I have recommended Segment many times since then, and I'm stoked for the company's success.

teddyh 7y ago

Apparently user fingerprinting is where the money is. I note that the uMatrix web browser add-on blocks the entire domain of the company.

nkrisc 7y ago
Must be on one of those lists, because my pi-hole blocks it too. It's funny, just yesterday I was searching around for some server log analytics solutions for my site (settled on GoAccess for now) and they kept popping up in my search results. Never clicked on them though as the link descriptions made it clear they weren't what I was looking for.
Nextgrid 7y ago
Yep. The world would've been a better place if Segment had more than just a "brush" with death.

cyberferret 7y ago

The title is a bit misleading IMO. The company was in a state of flux before they pivoted and rebranded as Segment as far as I can read (when they had a different name). The actual company 'Segment' seems to have been on a great course of growth since then.

rshnotsecure 7y ago

This is a front company controlled by a foreign government in part. Their security / cloud team is made up of former Credit Karma engineers. In regards to Credit Karma, they are funded by Tiger Global Management. Tiger Global Management is quite an interesting company. Their SSL organization is currently on 16 million certs worldwide. With the 2nd most being in Russia and the 3rd most in Ukraine. This can be looked up right now on Shodan. Simply enter “Tiger Global Management, LLC”. I along with two reporters separately have reached out to them over the past 2-3 months. They have not responded to any comment or made any changes. Private equity firms are buying out hosting and domain registration companies en-masse. This is what happened during the .ORG. Ethol Capital is lol a fake company. They had 2 employees on LinkedIn as of a few weeks ago. Look at Mailgun.org btw which you might notice Segment uses (also recently acquired by private equity firm out of San Antonio). Exactly why does one of their DNS records point to Culliganwaterllc.com in Coeur De Alene, Idaho of all places? For god sakes these people were involved in a major hacking incident in April. This is not a theory so much as it is a collection of pressing questions that demand an explanation.

noelwelsh 7y ago
I really don't understand what you are trying to say.
- eganist 7y ago
  Winding, conspiratorial comments like this that come with no evidence are usually better off flagged than anything else.

bobosha 7y ago

This is an all-too-common story with startups, as PG points out in several essays. Often startups only make sense looking back, and don't lend themselves to business-plans & analytics.