4 ms·

Logical. They probably will be aquihired by someone like Broadcom.

boomskats 2mo ago
I expect the majority of Oxide's customers are actively trying to escape Broadcom's VMWare hell. Can't see how something like that would make sense.
- MisterTea 2mo ago
  Makes sense for Broadcom.
- a2ff6eeb0 2mo ago
  It makes sense for Broadcom to remove that avenue of escape, and it makes sense for Oxide's investors to charge a premium to Broadcom, and materialize their returns. The customers will have to deal with it, of course. At least they bought physical systems instead of renting them, so they can use them until they're obsolete.
  - panick21_ 2mo ago
    Some of their larger costumer might want to buy them instead so it doesn't happen.
dkbrk 2mo ago
I doubt that. Oxide was founded by a bunch of ex-Sun people who have already been burned by the Oracle acquisition. If you read through what they say, their company values, and how they act, it's pretty clear their intent is to grow a sustainable long-term business and they're not looking for an exit.
- senderista 2mo ago
  VC funding is not for "a sustainable long-term business".
  - zie 2mo ago
    Depends on the VC. Some VC's are happy to own great businesses, even long term. Most are definitely vultures after a quick turn around. Mostly it has to do with where the VC gets their funding. Most VC's get their funding from offering a fund with a 2-5 year time-frame. Some are 10 yr funds, and some are long-term funds or are funded by a family office or two, which can be happy with great businesses long term.
  - dkbrk 2mo ago
    Read the blog post on their series C [0]. It's not long, but the most relevant excepts are: > So if we didn’t need to raise, why seek the capital? Well, we weren’t seeking it, really. But our investors, seeing the business take off, were eager to support it. And we, in turn, were eager to have them: they were the ones, after all, who joined us in taking a real leap when it felt like there was a lot more risk on the table. > ... > Our intent in starting Oxide was not to be an acquisition target but rather build a generational company; this is our life’s work, not a means to an end. With our Series C, customers don’t have to merely take our word for it: we have the capital to assure our survival into the indefinite future. Maybe you could read that and think its complete bullshit and they're lying their asses off. Considering the people behind Oxide and their history, that's vanishingly unlikely though. The reasonable conclusion is that they would not have raised yet more money if it wasn't due to being offered very generous terms by investors who wouldn't threaten the long-term future of the business. [0]: https://oxide.computer/blog/our-200m-series-c https://oxide.computer/blog/our-200m-series-c
    - treis 2mo ago
      It says "they've entirely derisked capital" and now ~6 months later they raised twice as much. Lying is a strong word but that post clearly wasn't accurate at the time. They've raised a lot of money and there will be pressure for an exit sooner rather than later.
      - rincebrain 2mo ago
        I don't think that's necessarily true. You can be cashflow positive and still benefit from having a larger pool of cash to throw around, particularly in any situation involving hardware manufacturing. If you tell your investors "our limiting factor is how fast we can spend to deliver on additional requirements for these new customers", then it can both be true that you're not going to miss payroll for 5 years no matter what happens tomorrow and more cash would be beneficial.
TimTheTinker 2mo ago
I can't think of an outcome that would be more odious to Steve Tuck and Brian Cantrill. Brian in particular still talks about the soul-crushing experience of Oracle's hostile takeover of Sun Microsystems.
- calvinmorrison 2mo ago
  How about the sellout of Joyent to Samsung?
  - TimTheTinker 2mo ago
    Joyent was likely a part of what convinced Brian Cantrill that a new cloud machine was needed. They had their own stack running on commodity OEM hardware in their own cloud - likely a painful experience, since Brian talks a lot about how much of a difference it makes to own the complete root of trust and everything in it.
    - deleted 2mo ago
      [deleted]
  - tw04 2mo ago
    Joyent was founded in 2004. Bryan joined in 2014 - I doubt he had much, if any, say in the sale proceeding or not.
    - glenngillen 2mo ago
      He became CTO in 2014. I was familiar with him at Joyent some years before that though. edit/update: and the Samsung acquisition was in 2016. So I'd hope the CTO would have _some_ involvement in that decision.
      - bcantrill 2mo ago
        This all became pretty personal over here! To answer these questions (or accusations?): Yes, I was at Joyent for the acquisition by Samsung -- but I also was not a founder, did not have a board seat, etc., so the involvement that I had, while substantial at some level (working with the Samsung team when they were doing their significant due diligence, for example) was also ultimately limited. My job was to make the acquisition work, not to determine the fate of the company for which I was ultimately an employee. It's also absurd to call the sale a "sellout" -- the company was not for sale when Samsung came calling. The deal that Samsung proposed was a good and fair one, and if I HAD been on the board, I would have absolutely voted for the acquisition. (It should be said that Samsung themselves had a very high threshold to close the deal -- 97% of shares IIRC?) And all of THAT said: while I was supportive of the acquisition by Samsung of Joyent (and worked hard to make that acquisition work), when we started Oxide, Steve and I had (and have!) zero interest in building a company to be acquired. Oxide is our life's work (and I mean that "our" broadly, as many at Oxide feel that same calling), and our objective with Oxide is to build an independent, generational company. Indeed, this Series D is all about advancing that objective!
Nextgrid 2mo ago
Is there anything they're doing that can't be replicated by hypervisor/management software on commodity x86 servers? Seems like their "secret sauce" is a software stack that "just works" more than any actual special feature of the hardware. I feel like Broadcom with its VMWare acquisition could easily take these guys out if they wanted to (or for that matter, any OEM that has a line of servers + network & storage hardware). They don't, most likely because there isn't actually enough profit to be made there (Oxide having to raise money multiple times might be a hint).
- FireBeyond 2mo ago
  > Broadcom with its VMWare acquisition could easily take these guys out if they wanted to. Depends on what you mean by that. Broadcom cremated a lot of VMware's goodwill in the market.
- joshuamorton 2mo ago
  > Is there anything they're doing that can't be replicated by hypervisor/management software on commodity x86 servers? Seems like their "secret sauce" is a software stack that "just works" more than any actual special feature of the hardware. There's a reason Apple is consistently one of the top 5 most valuable companies. It isn't because their hardware does anything that can't be done on "commodity" hardware, its that they built a software stack that "just works" and part of that was tight coupling to the hardware.
  - XorNot 2mo ago
    Which only matters to consumers. Businesses at scale have teams doing this stuff and costs matter. I've written on this before but Oxide are sitting in very narrow market segment in terms of value and I can't see how it's viable.
    - ahl 2mo ago
      The market is anyone who wants a private cloud but isn’t as big as an Amazon or Google who could build it themselves. Seems like a big enough TAM.

I expect the majority of Oxide's customers are actively trying to escape Broadcom's VMWare hell. Can't see how something like that would make sense.

MisterTea 2mo ago
Makes sense for Broadcom.
a2ff6eeb0 2mo ago
It makes sense for Broadcom to remove that avenue of escape, and it makes sense for Oxide's investors to charge a premium to Broadcom, and materialize their returns. The customers will have to deal with it, of course. At least they bought physical systems instead of renting them, so they can use them until they're obsolete.
- panick21_ 2mo ago
  Some of their larger costumer might want to buy them instead so it doesn't happen.

dkbrk 2mo ago

I doubt that. Oxide was founded by a bunch of ex-Sun people who have already been burned by the Oracle acquisition. If you read through what they say, their company values, and how they act, it's pretty clear their intent is to grow a sustainable long-term business and they're not looking for an exit.

senderista 2mo ago
VC funding is not for "a sustainable long-term business".
- zie 2mo ago
  Depends on the VC. Some VC's are happy to own great businesses, even long term. Most are definitely vultures after a quick turn around. Mostly it has to do with where the VC gets their funding. Most VC's get their funding from offering a fund with a 2-5 year time-frame. Some are 10 yr funds, and some are long-term funds or are funded by a family office or two, which can be happy with great businesses long term.
- dkbrk 2mo ago
  Read the blog post on their series C [0]. It's not long, but the most relevant excepts are: > So if we didn’t need to raise, why seek the capital? Well, we weren’t seeking it, really. But our investors, seeing the business take off, were eager to support it. And we, in turn, were eager to have them: they were the ones, after all, who joined us in taking a real leap when it felt like there was a lot more risk on the table. > ... > Our intent in starting Oxide was not to be an acquisition target but rather build a generational company; this is our life’s work, not a means to an end. With our Series C, customers don’t have to merely take our word for it: we have the capital to assure our survival into the indefinite future. Maybe you could read that and think its complete bullshit and they're lying their asses off. Considering the people behind Oxide and their history, that's vanishingly unlikely though. The reasonable conclusion is that they would not have raised yet more money if it wasn't due to being offered very generous terms by investors who wouldn't threaten the long-term future of the business. [0]: https://oxide.computer/blog/our-200m-series-c https://oxide.computer/blog/our-200m-series-c
  - treis 2mo ago
    It says "they've entirely derisked capital" and now ~6 months later they raised twice as much. Lying is a strong word but that post clearly wasn't accurate at the time. They've raised a lot of money and there will be pressure for an exit sooner rather than later.
    - rincebrain 2mo ago
      I don't think that's necessarily true. You can be cashflow positive and still benefit from having a larger pool of cash to throw around, particularly in any situation involving hardware manufacturing. If you tell your investors "our limiting factor is how fast we can spend to deliver on additional requirements for these new customers", then it can both be true that you're not going to miss payroll for 5 years no matter what happens tomorrow and more cash would be beneficial.

TimTheTinker 2mo ago

I can't think of an outcome that would be more odious to Steve Tuck and Brian Cantrill. Brian in particular still talks about the soul-crushing experience of Oracle's hostile takeover of Sun Microsystems.

calvinmorrison 2mo ago
How about the sellout of Joyent to Samsung?
- TimTheTinker 2mo ago
  Joyent was likely a part of what convinced Brian Cantrill that a new cloud machine was needed. They had their own stack running on commodity OEM hardware in their own cloud - likely a painful experience, since Brian talks a lot about how much of a difference it makes to own the complete root of trust and everything in it.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
- tw04 2mo ago
  Joyent was founded in 2004. Bryan joined in 2014 - I doubt he had much, if any, say in the sale proceeding or not.
  - glenngillen 2mo ago
    He became CTO in 2014. I was familiar with him at Joyent some years before that though. edit/update: and the Samsung acquisition was in 2016. So I'd hope the CTO would have _some_ involvement in that decision.
    - bcantrill 2mo ago
      This all became pretty personal over here! To answer these questions (or accusations?): Yes, I was at Joyent for the acquisition by Samsung -- but I also was not a founder, did not have a board seat, etc., so the involvement that I had, while substantial at some level (working with the Samsung team when they were doing their significant due diligence, for example) was also ultimately limited. My job was to make the acquisition work, not to determine the fate of the company for which I was ultimately an employee. It's also absurd to call the sale a "sellout" -- the company was not for sale when Samsung came calling. The deal that Samsung proposed was a good and fair one, and if I HAD been on the board, I would have absolutely voted for the acquisition. (It should be said that Samsung themselves had a very high threshold to close the deal -- 97% of shares IIRC?) And all of THAT said: while I was supportive of the acquisition by Samsung of Joyent (and worked hard to make that acquisition work), when we started Oxide, Steve and I had (and have!) zero interest in building a company to be acquired. Oxide is our life's work (and I mean that "our" broadly, as many at Oxide feel that same calling), and our objective with Oxide is to build an independent, generational company. Indeed, this Series D is all about advancing that objective!

Nextgrid 2mo ago

Is there anything they're doing that can't be replicated by hypervisor/management software on commodity x86 servers? Seems like their "secret sauce" is a software stack that "just works" more than any actual special feature of the hardware. I feel like Broadcom with its VMWare acquisition could easily take these guys out if they wanted to (or for that matter, any OEM that has a line of servers + network & storage hardware). They don't, most likely because there isn't actually enough profit to be made there (Oxide having to raise money multiple times might be a hint).

FireBeyond 2mo ago
> Broadcom with its VMWare acquisition could easily take these guys out if they wanted to. Depends on what you mean by that. Broadcom cremated a lot of VMware's goodwill in the market.
joshuamorton 2mo ago
> Is there anything they're doing that can't be replicated by hypervisor/management software on commodity x86 servers? Seems like their "secret sauce" is a software stack that "just works" more than any actual special feature of the hardware. There's a reason Apple is consistently one of the top 5 most valuable companies. It isn't because their hardware does anything that can't be done on "commodity" hardware, its that they built a software stack that "just works" and part of that was tight coupling to the hardware.
- XorNot 2mo ago
  Which only matters to consumers. Businesses at scale have teams doing this stuff and costs matter. I've written on this before but Oxide are sitting in very narrow market segment in terms of value and I can't see how it's viable.
  - ahl 2mo ago
    The market is anyone who wants a private cloud but isn’t as big as an Amazon or Google who could build it themselves. Seems like a big enough TAM.