4 ms·

I’m surprised by the comments here. The Broadcom business model (outside the chip business) had been pretty well known, and they don’t really hide it. They ar

by lokar 4mo ago

I’m surprised by the comments here. The Broadcom business model (outside the chip business) had been pretty well known, and they don’t really hide it. They are tech bottom feeders. They find large businesses with a decent moat and free cash flow but are in long term decline (and wasting cash trying to find something new). They buy them, cut development, support and marginal products. Raise prices and squeeze as much as they can.

SlightlyLeftPad 4mo ago
It’s the same modus operandi as private equity but worse, because Broadcom has the money and technical resources to do interesting things with the technology, but they don’t.
- lokar 4mo ago
  KKR bought Avago, which bought Broadcom and took the name. They are a PE firm
  - deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  - wmf 4mo ago
    I think KKR sold Avago/Broadcom years ago but the same CEO and private equity mindset is still there.
    - asdff 4mo ago
      Wikipedia's ownership section on broadcom is stale 2024 data but back then at least 10 investment firms and banks owned about 40% of it.
      - ddeck 4mo ago
        Broadcom is publicly listed with a public float of about 98% (i.e. 98% of it's shares are listed publicly). You're right that most shares are held by institutions (~80%), but that typically reflects the fact that most share ownership by individuals/companies goes through intermediaries (401k, fund investments, ETF etc.). Most of this institutional ownership is just asset managers, insurance, banks etc. taking their cut before passing returns/loses through to the end risk holder. The average institutional ownership of companies in the S&P500 for example is also ~80%. None of this takes away from the point that Broadcom is absolutely run like a PE firm as the original commenter noted. Not surprising given the CEO was appointed by KKR/Silverlake 20 years ago. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVGO/holders/?p=AVGO https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVGO/holders/?p=AVGO
        Annatar 4mo ago
        [dead]
        throw0101a 4mo ago
        > None of this takes away from the point that Broadcom is absolutely run like a PE firm as the original commenter noted. So a public(ly-traded) private equity firm. :)
  - lenkite 4mo ago
    Someone really needs to build an "Evil Companies" list with flowcharts showing the date/time of demonic possession.
    - port11 4mo ago
      I started building one some years ago, until a friend pointed out that I’d be unemployable and probably targeted.
      - fauchletenerum 4mo ago
        Do it anonymously?
        rbanffy 4mo ago
        Calling @cstross as technology and demonic possession seem to be some of his core competences.
        Obscurity4340 4mo ago
        Is @catross generally responsive to beetlejuicing of this nature?
      - saagarjha 4mo ago
        I guess one of the people who made their millions and retired should do it
        ethbr1 4mo ago
        Sounds hard to do from a yacht...
        SlightlyLeftPad 4mo ago
        With Starlink, now CEOs can use AI to make decisions from any water in the world!
  - next_xibalba 4mo ago
    This is not true. Broadcom is a public company. It doesn't have a single or even majority owner.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
gste 4mo ago
That's what Constellation Software do and they're in the top 20 biggest software companies. It's not a niche thing for sure
lifeisstillgood 4mo ago
Being told you are carrying a scorpion across a river is not a lot of help halfway across. I think however this mostly speaks about how hard it is to run anything even vaguely securely. There are so many independant CPUs and OSes on one motherboard plus HDD these days …
parasubvert 4mo ago
They do keep investing in their software "just enough" to keep customers from churning. These sorts of lawsuits never really make it to court, there's a negotiation tactic. Meanwhile Broadcom's software revenue led by VMware keeps growing 30% YoY and they close new contracts because in spite of being expensive.... because there's very few true alternatives in the market to VMware Cloud Foundation at high scale - Nutanix, Proxmox, Azure Stack, and OpenShift all exist but have their own problems. I've worked with them all, and they're all... big, expensive and difficult, though VMware probably is the most stable and hassle free of the bunch. Just costs a lot.
- anonymousiam 4mo ago
  Revenue may be increasing, but their customer base is decreasing, and any customer who's paying attention is now looking for an exit strategy. Yes, the alternatives have their problems, but ESXi/VMware/VCenter/VSphere have a lot of problems too. I will disagree with your claim that "VMware is the most stable and hassle free of the bunch." I spec'ed, installed, and ran a VMware cluster for a few years and it was never very stable. After a while I stopped installing the software updates because they would usually break something. More than once, after applying an update, I had to re-install the licenses for each server and its associated CPUs, which is a painful process. We initially installed using an external DNS, but the cluster was so flaky that we had to switch to their recommended configuration of local DNS. There was a never ending stream of security vulnerabilities, so you were highly incentivized to patch, but it never got any better.
  - nikanj 4mo ago
    Most stable of the bunch does not mean ”100% stable”
  - parasubvert 4mo ago
    > Revenue may be increasing, but their customer base is decreasing, and any customer who's paying attention is now looking for an exit strategy. VMware in 2024 had 96% of the virtualization market and 500k customers. The above is somewhat true but also kind of like saying "the USA is in decline"... okay, but it's so big that it's going to take a very long time, and not every arrow is pointing down. Broadcom focusing on higher margin larger customers hurts the 10+ year horizon but at the same time they're closing massive (9 figure) deals 5 years out including some very large expansions. Everyone is going to look for an exit - as they should! - but that doesn't mean they actually WILL exit. (I don't work for VMware, though I did years ago, I am an independent). > I spec'ed, installed, and ran a VMware cluster for a few years and it was never very stable. After a while I stopped installing the software updates because they would usually break something. I would gently suggest this isn't really much of an anecdote. This is like saying "I ran Linux once and it never seemed stable, so I stopped updating it". There's VMware customers that range from a dozen VMs on a cluster to literally hundreds of clusters each with 10-20 hosts each with 100+ cores and 2 TB+ RAM and thousands of VMs... adding up to 500k+ VMs at the largest customers. > More than once, after applying an update, I had to re-install the licenses for each server and its associated CPUs, which is a painful process. This is not something I have encountered in 20+ years or could find an KB about online to indicate it was a widespread issue (though maybe it was if you have a link). Broadcom moved all licenses to subscription recently, which caused issues here but otherwise this feels odd. > We initially installed using an external DNS, but the cluster was so flaky that we had to switch to their recommended configuration of local DNS. I am not sure I understand, What do you mean by local vs external DNS? I am familiar with Kubernetes clusters having local CoreDNS and a plugin for plumbing external records called External DNS, however these aren't vSphere concerns. Vsphere uses standard NTP and DNS and doesn't ship with a DNS server, it doesn't have any recommendations on where or how it runs other than it being highly available.

by lokar 4mo ago

SlightlyLeftPad 4mo ago

It’s the same modus operandi as private equity but worse, because Broadcom has the money and technical resources to do interesting things with the technology, but they don’t.

lokar 4mo ago
KKR bought Avago, which bought Broadcom and took the name. They are a PE firm
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- wmf 4mo ago
  I think KKR sold Avago/Broadcom years ago but the same CEO and private equity mindset is still there.
  - asdff 4mo ago
    Wikipedia's ownership section on broadcom is stale 2024 data but back then at least 10 investment firms and banks owned about 40% of it.
    - ddeck 4mo ago
      Broadcom is publicly listed with a public float of about 98% (i.e. 98% of it's shares are listed publicly). You're right that most shares are held by institutions (~80%), but that typically reflects the fact that most share ownership by individuals/companies goes through intermediaries (401k, fund investments, ETF etc.). Most of this institutional ownership is just asset managers, insurance, banks etc. taking their cut before passing returns/loses through to the end risk holder. The average institutional ownership of companies in the S&P500 for example is also ~80%. None of this takes away from the point that Broadcom is absolutely run like a PE firm as the original commenter noted. Not surprising given the CEO was appointed by KKR/Silverlake 20 years ago. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVGO/holders/?p=AVGO https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AVGO/holders/?p=AVGO
      - Annatar 4mo ago
        [dead]
      - throw0101a 4mo ago
        > None of this takes away from the point that Broadcom is absolutely run like a PE firm as the original commenter noted. So a public(ly-traded) private equity firm. :)
- lenkite 4mo ago
  Someone really needs to build an "Evil Companies" list with flowcharts showing the date/time of demonic possession.
  - port11 4mo ago
    I started building one some years ago, until a friend pointed out that I’d be unemployable and probably targeted.
    - fauchletenerum 4mo ago
      Do it anonymously?
      - rbanffy 4mo ago
        Calling @cstross as technology and demonic possession seem to be some of his core competences.
        Obscurity4340 4mo ago
        Is @catross generally responsive to beetlejuicing of this nature?
    - saagarjha 4mo ago
      I guess one of the people who made their millions and retired should do it
      - ethbr1 4mo ago
        Sounds hard to do from a yacht...
        SlightlyLeftPad 4mo ago
        With Starlink, now CEOs can use AI to make decisions from any water in the world!
- next_xibalba 4mo ago
  This is not true. Broadcom is a public company. It doesn't have a single or even majority owner.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

gste 4mo ago

That's what Constellation Software do and they're in the top 20 biggest software companies. It's not a niche thing for sure

lifeisstillgood 4mo ago

Being told you are carrying a scorpion across a river is not a lot of help halfway across. I think however this mostly speaks about how hard it is to run anything even vaguely securely. There are so many independant CPUs and OSes on one motherboard plus HDD these days …

parasubvert 4mo ago

They do keep investing in their software "just enough" to keep customers from churning. These sorts of lawsuits never really make it to court, there's a negotiation tactic. Meanwhile Broadcom's software revenue led by VMware keeps growing 30% YoY and they close new contracts because in spite of being expensive.... because there's very few true alternatives in the market to VMware Cloud Foundation at high scale - Nutanix, Proxmox, Azure Stack, and OpenShift all exist but have their own problems. I've worked with them all, and they're all... big, expensive and difficult, though VMware probably is the most stable and hassle free of the bunch. Just costs a lot.

anonymousiam 4mo ago
Revenue may be increasing, but their customer base is decreasing, and any customer who's paying attention is now looking for an exit strategy. Yes, the alternatives have their problems, but ESXi/VMware/VCenter/VSphere have a lot of problems too. I will disagree with your claim that "VMware is the most stable and hassle free of the bunch." I spec'ed, installed, and ran a VMware cluster for a few years and it was never very stable. After a while I stopped installing the software updates because they would usually break something. More than once, after applying an update, I had to re-install the licenses for each server and its associated CPUs, which is a painful process. We initially installed using an external DNS, but the cluster was so flaky that we had to switch to their recommended configuration of local DNS. There was a never ending stream of security vulnerabilities, so you were highly incentivized to patch, but it never got any better.
- nikanj 4mo ago
  Most stable of the bunch does not mean ”100% stable”
- parasubvert 4mo ago
  > Revenue may be increasing, but their customer base is decreasing, and any customer who's paying attention is now looking for an exit strategy. VMware in 2024 had 96% of the virtualization market and 500k customers. The above is somewhat true but also kind of like saying "the USA is in decline"... okay, but it's so big that it's going to take a very long time, and not every arrow is pointing down. Broadcom focusing on higher margin larger customers hurts the 10+ year horizon but at the same time they're closing massive (9 figure) deals 5 years out including some very large expansions. Everyone is going to look for an exit - as they should! - but that doesn't mean they actually WILL exit. (I don't work for VMware, though I did years ago, I am an independent). > I spec'ed, installed, and ran a VMware cluster for a few years and it was never very stable. After a while I stopped installing the software updates because they would usually break something. I would gently suggest this isn't really much of an anecdote. This is like saying "I ran Linux once and it never seemed stable, so I stopped updating it". There's VMware customers that range from a dozen VMs on a cluster to literally hundreds of clusters each with 10-20 hosts each with 100+ cores and 2 TB+ RAM and thousands of VMs... adding up to 500k+ VMs at the largest customers. > More than once, after applying an update, I had to re-install the licenses for each server and its associated CPUs, which is a painful process. This is not something I have encountered in 20+ years or could find an KB about online to indicate it was a widespread issue (though maybe it was if you have a link). Broadcom moved all licenses to subscription recently, which caused issues here but otherwise this feels odd. > We initially installed using an external DNS, but the cluster was so flaky that we had to switch to their recommended configuration of local DNS. I am not sure I understand, What do you mean by local vs external DNS? I am familiar with Kubernetes clusters having local CoreDNS and a plugin for plumbing external records called External DNS, however these aren't vSphere concerns. Vsphere uses standard NTP and DNS and doesn't ship with a DNS server, it doesn't have any recommendations on where or how it runs other than it being highly available.