Alphabet is reportedly eyeing its biggest acquisition in history

A deal for cybersecurity specialists Wiz could set the tech giant back ~$23 billion

7/15/24 11:30AM

Wiz bid

Google’s parent company Alphabet is looking to lock down a $23 billion deal for cybersecurity software startup Wiz, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. The potential acquisition, which would be the largest in the company’s history, comes just a few weeks after Alphabet walked away from deal talks with marketing software company HubSpot, which has a market cap of $24 billion.

Wiz, which bills itself as the #1 cloud security platform and counts 40% of Fortune 100 companies as users, recently raised $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation in May, as it looked to expand ahead of a rumored IPO. Just over 2 months later, however, the company looks likely to become another property in Alphabet’s ever-expanding empire, at nearly twice its previous valuation.

GOOG gang

If the deal goes through, Wiz would join a long list of acquisitions made by the tech giant: according to Crunchbase, Google has bought 264 businesses through the years, the most of any of its big tech peers. While the vast majority of those will be relative unknowns to the general public, some have become household names.

Alphabet’s $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube back in 2006, for example, now looks like a master stroke, with the video-sharing platform bringing in $8.1 billion in ad revenue in the first quarter of 2024 alone. Conversely, Motorola Mobility, the company’s biggest acquisition to date, fared a lot worse under the Alphabet umbrella — Google’s parent got rid of the phone-maker for $2.9 billion just ~2 years after acquiring it for $12.5 billion, in a “gargantuan mistake that only Google could afford to make”, according to Time.

It’s impossible to say where we’ll place the $23 billion Wiz deal on the YouTube-to-Motorola scale in a decade’s time, but with two deals in completely different industries — both with $20 billion+ price tags — discussed in the last few months, Alphabet’s clearly ready to get something major done.

Rani Molla19h

“Tesla killer” Slate Auto switches CEOs ahead of launch later this year

Just months before the expected launch of its $25,000 truck, so-called “Tesla killer” Slate Auto has swapped out its CEO. Former Amazon Marketplace Vice President Peter Faricy is the new leader of the Jeff Bezos-backed company, while the previous CEO, Chris Barman, one of the electric truck maker’s first employees, is now president of vehicles.

“ The marketplace component is really important to us. Being able to understand how to sell things in the 21st century is really important because we're gonna be direct to consumer, without dealerships,” Jeff Jablansky, head of communications at Slate, said of the change. “The way Chris put it is, we are adding horsepower at a critical moment when people are going to be able to actually order their trucks.”

In a social media post just last month, then CEO Barman said the company would unveil the exact price tag for its Blank Slate, which goes on sale late in 2026, in June, but reaffirmed it will be in the mid-$20,000s.

Bezos-backed Slate Auto hires new, ex-Amazon CEO

Rani Molla21h

Amazon’s autonomous ride-hailing service now testing in 10 markets

Amazon self-driving subsidiary Zoox announced Monday that it’s testing in two additional markets, Phoenix and Dallas, bringing its total to 10 US markets. The company will begin by mapping select neighborhoods using retrofitted Toyota Highlander SUVs with safety drivers behind the wheel, before progressing to autonomous testing and eventually rolling out its steering-wheel-less, purpose-built vehicles for public users.

The service is currently available to the public in Las Vegas and to select users in the Bay Area, where it’s served 300,000 riders.

Zoox is also opening a third “Fusion Center” facility, in Arizona after Las Vegas and the Bay Area, from which it will provide assistance and coordinate operations for its fleet.

Zoox’s expansion comes as Alphabet’s Waymo recently reached its 10th public market and as Tesla’s Robotaxi says it plans to open in six new markets in the first half of the year.

Zoox is expanding and preparing to bring service to Dallas and Phoenix | Zoox

The service is currently available to the public in Las Vegas and to select users in the Bay Area, where it’s served 300,000 riders.

Zoox is also opening a third “Fusion Center” facility, in Arizona after Las Vegas and the Bay Area, from which it will provide assistance and coordinate operations for its fleet.

Zoox’s expansion comes as Alphabet’s Waymo recently reached its 10th public market and as Tesla’s Robotaxi says it plans to open in six new markets in the first half of the year.

Jon Keegan22h

Microsoft will use Anthropic’s Claude to power “Copilot Cowork”

Microsoft is partnering with Anthropic to power its new agentic offering, Copilot Cowork. The AI world is abuzz with agents that can do your busywork for you, and Anthropic’s Claude Cowork is one of the most prominent and capable offerings in the field.

The tech giant wrote:

“Working closely with Anthropic, we have integrated the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models.”

Microsoft listed some examples of how Copilot Cowork could help with common tasks such as rescheduling meetings, sending emails, researching companies, working with spreadsheets, and making presentations.

It’s worth stepping back to note how wild it is that Microsoft, the productivity software behemoth that has absolutely dominated the business world for decades, has had to turn to an AI startup to control those apps.

Copilot Cowork: A new way of getting work done | Microsoft 365 Blog

“Working closely with Anthropic, we have integrated the technology behind Claude Cowork into Microsoft 365 Copilot. It is this multi-model advantage that makes Copilot different. Your work is not limited by one brand of models.”

Rani Molla22h

China’s smartphone slump could strengthen Apple

China smartphone shipments fell 22% year over year in January, according to a new Bernstein research note. The drop was partly due to the timing of Lunar New Year and tough comparisons with last year, when government subsidies boosted sales, but rising memory costs are also weighing on demand — especially in the lower-end segment dominated by Chinese brands.

Low-tier shipments fell 37%, hitting brands like Honor and Vivo particularly hard, while high-end sales from Apple and Huawei held up better. Overall average selling prices rose 13%.

That could be good news for Apple, which sits at the more price-insulated upper end of the Chinese market and has been making a comeback in the country. Apple’s market share grew to 18% in January — in line with Huawei — from 14% a year earlier, while the rest of the market fell 2 percentage points to 65%.

With its scale and industry-leading margins, the iPhone maker is better positioned to absorb higher memory costs. To wit: it recently unveiled the $599 iPhone 17e, which keeps its entry price steady with its predecessor while doubling storage.

Rani Molla

23h

Alphabet ties a portion of Sundar Pichai’s pay to Waymo for the first time

By tying up to $260 million of its CEO’s pay to Waymo, Alphabet is making clear the autonomous vehicle unit is no longer just an “Other Bet.”