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When a large company is after a popular startup, the decision to sell is not clear-cut

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When a big company comes after a hot startup, it’s not a slam dunk decision to sell

Last month, rumors first emerged that Google was pursuing cloud security startup Wiz, and a suggestion of $23 billion was on the table, the most lucrative offer ever made to a startup. There were a lot of moving parts before the deal finally fell through, and it’s fair to ask: What are the mechanics behind putting a big deal like this in motion, and the way does a startup determine whether to sell or not?

We spoke with Jyoti Bansal, founder and CEO of Harness, a developer tools startup that has raised about $575 million and made a variety of small acquisitions along the way. While Bansal has no direct knowledge of the Google-Wiz negotiation process, he experienced the adulation of a large company when Cisco got here in after his previous startup, AppDynamics. Cisco ultimately bought the company just days before it went public in 2017 for $3.7 billion.

He says there are three aspects at play in deals like this. The first is how serious the offer is, and whether it’s concrete or simply exploratory. In the case of a private company like Wiz, it’s likely to be exploratory at first, since there’s not as much public details about its funds as there can be with a public company.

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Bansal says that when he was going through the AppDynamics negotiations with Cisco, he had recently filed his S-1 with the SEC, and all of his financial cards were already on the table. “So for an acquirer, acquiring a private company that’s on the IPO track and a few days away from an IPO is fundamentally no different than acquiring a public company,” he says. “All the information they need is there, and they don’t have to worry about whether they’re missing something, or whether the information isn’t clean, verified, or audited.”

Once you’ve got determined how serious the company is, you wish to investigate whether it’s a good fit. “The second factor in any type of courtship that happens is why are you merging companies? Is it interesting? Is it exciting?” You also need to consider what is going to occur to your employees and your products: Will some employees lose their jobs? Will products be discontinued or canceled?

Finally, and maybe most significantly, the economics of the deal need to be examined to see if it is sensible and represents good value for shareholders. From Wiz’s perspective, this was a huge offer (assuming the rumored amount was accurate) that was 46 times current ARR and 23 times projected 2025 ARR. However, Wiz believed it could be higher to remain a private company.

In Bansal’s case, when Cisco courted him, he was in the middle of his company’s IPO tour. It took a few days for the company to go public, but even with the information Cisco could analyze, there have been ongoing discussions, and it wasn’t easy for Bansal to surrender his baby, even when the price was right in the end.

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Both firms knew they’d a strict deadline. Once the IPO happened, it was over. The negotiations ended with three offers, and after they ended, Cisco got the company. “Ultimately, it comes down to what’s best for all the shareholders in terms of risk and reward. It’s about what’s the risk of being independent versus the reward of selling,” Bansal said.

The first offer was according to the IPO value and was easy to reject. The second was higher, but after discussing it with the board, Bansal again said no. “Then they came back with a third offer, and in the third offer it made sense, from a risk-reward perspective, for our shareholders to sell the company.” And they sold at a range of two.5 to 3 times the IPO valuation.

It’s easy to think that with billions of dollars at stake, the decision to sell can be easy, however it really wasn’t. “It wasn’t an easy decision on our part. It sounds like ($3.7 billion) is a very easy decision.” But he says you’ve to survey your investors, your fellow executives, your board members — they usually all have different interests, and also you’re trying to make the right decision for everybody involved.

Wiz thought it was higher to stay independent. In AppDynamics’ case, with the pressure of an IPO looming and a good deal on the table, the company eventually decided to accomplish that. “So for us to independently get to a valuation of two and a half, three times our IPO valuation, we would need at least three years of good execution,” he said. “And there were a lot of unknowns, a lot of risks for the company, like what’s going to happen in the next three years.”

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But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret it, regardless that he remodeled 300 of his employees millionaires with the deal and his personal wealth. When he looks back on the moment of the announcement, he realizes that it’s entirely possible he could have made that much money, or much more.

“I always wonder what AppDynamics could have become if we had gone to IPO. There are a lot of unknowns, and hindsight is 20/20, but if you look back, we sold the company in 2017, and the years after that sale, post-2017, were some of the best boom years in tech, especially for B2B SaaS,” he said. He ultimately could have made more cash, but he began Harness as a substitute and is joyful constructing a second company.

It’s necessary to note that Wiz’s offer stays mired in rumors, so it might or may not be that big. But if it were, the founders may also regret not getting Wiz the value it could have had if it had taken the big money and run.

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This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com

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This is the shipping of products from China to the USA

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Shein and Temu icons are seen displayed on a phone screen in this illustration photo

The Chinese retailer has modified the strategy in the face of American tariffs.

Thanks to the executive ordinance, President Donald Trump ended the so -called de minimis principle, which allowed goods value 800 USD or less entering the country without tariffs. It also increases tariffs to Chinese goods by over 100%, forcing each Chinese firms and Shein, in addition to American giants, similar to Amazon to adapt plans and price increases.

CNBC reports that this was also affected, and American buyers see “import fees” from 130% to 150% added to their accounts. Now, nevertheless, the company is not sending the goods directly from China to the United States. Instead, it only displays the offers of products available in American warehouses, while goods sent from China are listed as outside the warehouse.

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“He actively recruits American sellers to join the platform,” said the spokesman ago. “The transfer is to help local sellers reach more customers and develop their companies.”

(tagstotransate) tariffs

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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One of the last AI Google models is worse in terms of safety

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The Google Gemini generative AI logo on a smartphone.

The recently released Google AI model is worse in some security tests than its predecessor, in line with the company’s internal comparative test.

IN Technical report Google, published this week, reveals that his Flash Gemini 2.5 model is more likely that he generates a text that violates its security guidelines than Gemini 2.0 Flash. In two indicators “text security for text” and “image security to the text”, Flash Gemini 2.5 will withdraw 4.1% and 9.6% respectively.

Text safety for the text measures how often the model violates Google guidelines, making an allowance for the prompt, while image security to the text assesses how close the model adheres to those boundaries after displaying the monitors using the image. Both tests are automated, not supervised by man.

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In an e-mail, Google spokesman confirmed that Gemini 2.5 Flash “performs worse in terms of text safety for text and image.”

These surprising comparative results appear when AI is passing in order that their models are more acceptable – in other words, less often refuse to answer controversial or sensitive. In the case of the latest Llam Meta models, he said that he fought models in order to not support “some views on others” and answers to more “debated” political hints. Opeli said at the starting of this yr that he would improve future models, in order to not adopt an editorial attitude and offers many prospects on controversial topics.

Sometimes these efforts were refundable. TechCrunch announced on Monday that the default CHATGPT OPENAI power supply model allowed juvenile to generate erotic conversations. Opeli blamed his behavior for a “mistake”.

According to Google Technical Report, Gemini 2.5 Flash, which is still in view, follows instructions more faithfully than Gemini 2.0 Flash, including instructions exceeding problematic lines. The company claims that regression might be partially attributed to false positives, but in addition admits that Gemini 2.5 Flash sometimes generates “content of violation” when it is clearly asked.

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“Of course, there is a tension between (after instructions) on sensitive topics and violations of security policy, which is reflected in our assessment,” we read in the report.

The results from Meepmap, reference, which can examine how models react to sensitive and controversial hints, also suggest that Flash Gemini 2.5 is much less willing to refuse to reply controversial questions than Flash Gemini 2.0. Testing the TechCrunch model through the AI ​​OpenRoutter platform has shown that he unsuccessfully writes essays to support human artificial intelligence judges, weakening the protection of due protection in the US and the implementation of universal government supervisory programs.

Thomas Woodside, co -founder of the Secure AI Project, said that the limited details given by Google in their technical report show the need for greater transparency in testing models.

“There is a compromise between the instruction support and the observation of politics, because some users may ask for content that would violate the rules,” said Woodside Techcrunch. “In this case, the latest Flash model Google warns the instructions more, while breaking more. Google does not present many details about specific cases in which the rules have been violated, although they claim that they are not serious. Not knowing more, independent analysts are difficult to know if there is a problem.”

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Google was already under fire for his models of security reporting practices.

The company took weeks to publish a technical report for the most talented model, Gemini 2.5 Pro. When the report was finally published, it initially omitted the key details of the security tests.

On Monday, Google published a more detailed report with additional security information.

(Tagstotransate) Gemini

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Aurora launches a commercial self -propelled truck service in Texas

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The autonomous startup of the Aurora Innovation vehicle technology claims that it has successfully launched a self -propelled truck service in Texas, which makes it the primary company that she implemented without drivers, heavy trucks for commercial use on public roads in the USA

The premiere appears when Aurora gets the term: In October, the corporate delayed the planned debut 2024 to April 2025. The debut also appears five months after the rival Kodiak Robotics provided its first autonomous trucks to clients commercial for operations without a driver in field environments.

Aurora claims that this week she began to freight between Dallas and Houston with Hirschbach Motor Lines and Uber Freight starters, and that she has finished 1200 miles without a driver to this point. The company plans to expand to El Paso and Phoenix until the top of 2025.

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TechCrunch contacted for more detailed information concerning the premiere, for instance, the variety of vehicles implemented Aurora and whether the system needed to implement the Pullover maneuver or the required distant human assistance.

The commercial premiere of Aurora takes place in a difficult time. Self -propelled trucks have long been related to the necessity for his or her technology attributable to labor deficiencies in the chairman’s transport and the expected increase in freigh shipping. Trump’s tariffs modified this attitude, not less than in a short period. According to the April analytical company report from the commercial vehicle industry ACT researchThe freight is predicted to fall this yr in the USA with a decrease in volume and consumer expenditure.

Aurora will report its results in the primary quarter next week, i.e. when he shares how he expects the present trade war will affect his future activity. TechCrunch contacted to learn more about how tariffs affect Auror’s activities.

For now, Aurora will probably concentrate on further proving his safety case without a driver and cooperation with state and federal legislators to just accept favorable politicians to assist her develop.

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At the start of 2025, Aurora filed a lawsuit against federal regulatory bodies after the court refused to release the appliance for release from the protection requirement, which consists in placing warning triangles on the road, when the truck must stop on the highway – something that’s difficult to do when there isn’t a driver in the vehicle. To maintain compliance with this principle and proceed to totally implement without service drivers, Aurora probably has a man -driven automotive trail after they are working.

(Tagstranslate) Aurora Innovation

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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