[InkCanon]

There is actually some drama between Wiz and Orca, a company founded one year before Wiz. Orca alleged Wiz copied them, and Orca does operate in the same space. But a lot of hundred billion dollar companies are built on moats, integration and switching costs.

[_countzero_]

Yeah but Google is a trillion dollar company. Why do they need to spend $32billion on a company whose only value add seems to be they are good at finding exploits? You could hire every cyber security researcher in the country for $32billion.

[InkCanon]

It is a difficult question to answer. For example, why did Google acquire YouTube in the early 2010s? A platform technically and engineering wise similar to YouTube would have been very easy to replicate. IMO the best explanation goes back all the way to the days of Standard Oil/Carnegie Steel company - and quite possibly even the East India Company. There's an enormous benefit to consolidate various businesses under you and create a monopoly. Today in tech, monopolies are far from being as straightforward as being the dominant producer of a commodity like oil or steel. But there's undoubtedly some similar mechanisms involved. Synergy is one way to put it, but I think it's too restrictive.

I think the other part of the equation missing is if Google did create their own Wiz, Wiz would still be on the market, and it'd be a bitter fight which they could very well lose.

[more_corn]

Google did in fact have a product that was technically similar and in fact superior to YouTube. Remember Google Video? It was better and people hated it.

[thiago_fm]

What Wiz/Orca did is easy to copy for any Cloud security company with enough money, there's no moat.

What is hard about that is actually selling your product to customers, which Wiz managed to do in a way never seen before.