Nest is acquiring Dropcam

https://nest.com/blog/2014/06/20/the-nest-family-is-growing/

by ipince • 12 years ago

186 127 12 years ago

minimaxir• 12 years ago

Are high-profile announcements typically announced at 5pm on a Friday?

jakozaur2• 12 years ago

Likely the timing is because of stock exchange regulations. Google is publicly traded company so announcing it on different time may gave someone "unfair advantage".

Doing that 5pm Friday after market closes give everyone 2 days to process that information.

seanmcdirmid• 12 years ago

There was no reason to down vote this comment, it is probably exactly right. A lot of announcements for publicly traded companies are made at 5PM on a Friday.

yarri• 12 years ago

If they need the whole weekend to find the right tone to explain this acquisition, yes. Looking forward to seeing how Google handles the privacy concerns on this...

RockyMcNuts• 12 years ago

Search 'Friday news dump'

From the West Wing - http://politicaldictionary.com/words/friday-news-dump/

  Donna: What’s take out the trash day?
  Josh: Friday.
  Donna: I mean, what is it?
  Josh: Any stories we have to give the press that we’re not     
  wild about, we give all in a lump on Friday.
  Donna: Why do you do it in a lump?
  Josh: Instead of one at a time?
  Donna: I’d think you’d want to spread them out.
  Josh: They’ve got X column inches to fill, right? They’re
  going to fill them no matter what.
  Donna: Yes.
  Josh: So if we give them one story, that story’s X column
  inches.
  Donna: And if we give them five stories …
  Josh: They’re a fifth the size.
  Donna: Why do you do it on Friday?
  Josh: Because no one reads the paper on Saturday.
  Donna: You guys are real populists, aren’t you?

There are also other reasons, maybe they were rushing to complete the deal by EOD, if you try to keep it quiet over the weekend, might leak out in a haphazard way, want to release outside market hours, etc.

Not too coincidentally, a lot of the SEC filings with really bad news seem to happen in the last minute of filing activity on Friday. (Not that this particular announcement is very material or bad news)

jakozaur2• 12 years ago

Google has acquired Nest... so now Google has also acquired Dropcam. I wonder why they call it Nest acquistion, to downplay privacy concerns?

gress4• 12 years ago

Yup, the want to avoid the headline: "Google buys network of in-home cameras."

privong• 12 years ago

They did make a point of explicitly saying none of the data is shared with Google. But, yeah, probably best for fit PR to differentiate.

joliv• 12 years ago

To give us commenters the "Nest"ing doll softball of a pun.

georgemcbay• 12 years ago

Privacy concerns may have factored into it, but I suspect it was more to do with signaling the natural relationship between home automation devices, much like the way they positioned it so that "YouTube" (video streaming service) is acquiring Twitch (video streaming service).

personZ2• 12 years ago

Google has acquired Nest... so now Google has also acquired Dropcam

Nest wasn't an acquihire or an assimilation, but was always stated as a separately operating organization. As such, it makes total sense that Nest acquisitions are held as being under Nest.

If HBO acquired a show or a studio, you don't say that Time Warner acquired it. If NBC acquires a property, you don't say that Comcast acquired it. These arms lengths subsidiaries are at arms length for good logistical reasons.

Further it's interesting how much a privacy concern people think Google is on HN, yet in normal life the amount of trust in Google is...actually shocking. I mean Google makes no bones about telling you, endlessly, how much they know about you. They don't hide it.

hueving6• 12 years ago

Further it's interesting how much a privacy concern people think Google is on HN, yet in normal life the amount of trust in Google is...actually shocking. I mean Google makes no bones about telling you, endlessly, how much they know about you. They don't hide it.

Interesting. We must hear from different companies. The Google I hear from only says they just know a few basic things like showing an interest in technology and possibly being a male. Google excessively downplays the amount of actual information they have access to via social connections, mobile device usage, search history, email contents, etc.

ojbyrne• 12 years ago

It's interesting how google subsidiaries somehow announce acquisitions rather than the parent company.

evan_• 12 years ago

Youtube acquired Twitch last month:

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/05/18/report-youtube-acquires-tw...

so apparently this is a thing that happens now.

uptown• 12 years ago

I'm surprised Nest (Google) hasn't bought Logitech's Alert division yet. Logitech has been shopping it around - looking for a buyer - for awhile.

pbhjpbhj• 12 years ago

Perhaps they were concerned about leaving Dropcam as a/to a competitor and taking on Logitech; whilst acquiring Dropcam they can take out 2 competitors in one go as no-one else seems to want to take on Logitech? [Pure speculation].

sitkack2• 12 years ago

Because the Logitech brand is fugly, that ship is sinking and can be scooped up for less if they care to. This wasn't about technology, brand and customers.

mkempe• 12 years ago

Here is a more accurate description? Google acquires webcam-maker Dropcam for $555 Million, to integrate with its Nest brand.

martin_• 12 years ago

The deal went through for $555 million in cash. http://recode.net/2014/06/20/googles-nest-buys-dropcam-for-5...

dokem• 12 years ago

Funny how (relatively) little companies with actual business models are acquired for.

lumens• 12 years ago

Once you make it real (with an actual working model), the fantasy top-end projections of vapor-models disappear. Anchoring projections in realities of the market can be a real downer.

psbp• 12 years ago

It's probably more dependent on the volume of customers for all these data companies.

raldi• 12 years ago

From the January 3 "What's your prediction for 2014?" thread:

The next Nest product will be a home security system. If you already own Nest thermostats or smoke detectors, their motion sensors will do double-duty as security alarms.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7008786

jmduke• 12 years ago

Some interesting quotes from Dropcam's CEO last year:

“Our business model is very straightforward. I think if your business model is not straightforward, it veers into potentially being unethical, if you look at things that are quote-unquote ‘free.’ None of the people who work here want to work on something that works like that. They look at it as tricking the user, when [a company is] turning around and using some part of the user’s data to make revenue."

and

"He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days."

http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2013/04/23/dropcam-ceos...

npizzolato2• 12 years ago

Funny how quickly things change when someone offers to hand you a lot of money. Granted, someone's opinions can change, but I feel like the first quote especially describes a personal philosophical value that wouldn't change on a whim.

jeroen• 12 years ago

"Dropcam will come under Nest’s privacy policy, which explains that data won’t be shared with anyone (including Google) without a customer’s permission. Nest has a paid-for business model and ads are not part of our strategy. In acquiring Dropcam, we’ll apply that same policy to Dropcam too."

Looks like nothing will change about that straightforward business model.

enneff2• 12 years ago

The latter quote about the free food is just an ignorant comment. I'm sure once the guy talked to some actual Googlers and saw how it really plays out, his fears were assuaged.

(It's true that my free Google lunch keeps me at work around lunch time, but I don't feel pressure for me to work beyond the 38 hours a week they pay me for. In fact, Google has a lot of programs to help its employees maintain a good work/life balance. Of course there are crunch times, but I feel free to spend less time working at other times to balance it out.)

streblo• 12 years ago

Read the last section of the article.

general_failure• 12 years ago

I have said this many times before - everyone's ethics has a price. You just need to find the price. (Yeah yeah, there are exceptions in history but I am talking of the norm)

navjot• 12 years ago

Not really that funny. Most humans aren't brands. They change opinions and views based on new information.

Swizec2• 12 years ago

"He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days."

Is there actually honestly anyone out there who doesn't think so? I mean, is it really disguised even? We give you stuff, you make your life revolve around the company. It's a very straightforward exchange in my opinion.

Hell, people have directly said to me in interviews "We want this company to be all you think about" when explaining why they'd prefer to hire me full-time rather than part-time.

samstave2• 12 years ago

I've often thought about this problem:

On the one hand, you want to provide perks that offset personal cost to your employees AND reduce the amount of time it takes for them to do something like lunch with the result in increased productivity (ostensibly simply due to removing factors such as travel-time-to-lunch-place).

The company store comes to mid, as well.

There are many great benefits that companies do provide: free commute costs (bus, bike and ferry service) as well as on-site food...

Perhaps a way to quash any misgivings about such services would be to provide a daily per diem for services as pay, where you get the per diem pay UNLESS you partake of the companies service instead.

So you badge into each service and thus get that per-diem pay redacted from your check.

If you use NONE of the company's services, then you get that same portion of pay back.

This also has its problems, though.

----

What I would far prefer, though, is tech services system that companies can buy into:

Want your employees to be able to bus from SF to MTN VIEW: pay in and let them badge into that service.

Why should all the tech giants run separate services that are basically all the same routes? Let a company run that, and let ANY company add users and pay based on badging.

Let companies have a "groupon" of sorts for restaurants in their area, where the per-diem lunch allowance is spendable at any restaurant within a radius of the office. The employee will get a % of their meal paid for by the company, and they pay for anything they personally want over the base?

Allow for perks that are not walled to the campus/office/etc.

Heck, Path.com employees had a monthly Uber allowance they could spend...

This should be encouraged in Silicon Valley, to allow startups to share services at a discount which both provides revenue, data, testing, users, validation, etc....

sergiotapia• 12 years ago

Sounds like the mine owner opening up a mine shop for the miners where they can spend their mining earnings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_miners#Company_...

Creepy.

rdl5• 12 years ago

I don't really mind staying late at the office (with has gigabit nLayer, a 4K monitor, free drinks and snacks, etc.) vs. at home (which has comcast, and is pretty small). The commute between the locations is a pain, but otherwise I have no real difference between "being online doing whatever I want to do" at home vs. at the office.

Right now, I'm working on a TC article and some conference talks on independent research. I'll probably drive home once the traffic is done. I'll go to my co-presenter's house Saturday night to work on the talks again.

The "work vs. personal" distinction is really secondary to me, compared to "stuff I want to do, vs. stuff I'm forced to do"; work-related projects are just as often "want to" as home projects are "forced to".

shiven7• 12 years ago

He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days.

WTF is wrong with people!?! I'd work my butt off at a place that provides thrice-a-day healthy, delicious, diverse, vegetarian (for me) meals, on-site gym and sleeping pods!! Hell, I'd have surely done that when I was a decade younger! I hate cooking and it is ridiculously expensive to buy food with my dietary constraints in the open market. Especially food that is not only delicious but also healthy in the long term.

Why is there this utterly misguided hatred against "company food"?

Even after breaking down my yearly compensation to an hourly rate, I bet there will be a marginal difference in the money the company makes by keeping me working the extra hours and the price I'd pay for buying such food everyday (remember, I hate to cook).

Plus, nobody forces you to eat that food, if you really prefer cooking your own food or buying it from elsewhere, keep doing that.

I really feel that good, healthy food is an awesome incentive and stigmatizing it reeks of a bloody first world problem.

insaneirish2• 12 years ago

I'd work my butt off at a place that provides three-a-day healthy, delicious, diverse, vegetarian (for me) meals
Even after breaking down my yearly compensation to an hourly rate, I bet there will be a marginal difference in the money the company makes by keeping me working the extra hours and the price I'd pay for buying such food everyday

Any company providing you multiple meals per day for free is getting the better end of the bargain. Make no mistake about it. It's an arbitrage between the cost of cooking labor + cooking material vs. your labor.

In other words, you're getting the short end of the stick. People do not value perks rationally. If they did, they would deny every last one of them.

rdl5• 12 years ago

You probably generate a 5-10x multiple over your salary at most tech companies (if you're a dev or one of the other people those perks are "intended for"). At an early stage startup, it can be way more than that (because success or failure is kind of binary).

fotoblur• 12 years ago

Point proven.

ap22213• 12 years ago

Wow, at first I thought that you were being sarcastic, but then I kept reading.

I don't know about you, but my salary (plus benefits) rate is about $95-100 / hr.

So, let's say I 'work my butt off' for an extra 4-6 hours a day. That is an extra $3000 of unpaid work, per week, that the company gets for giving me food. Or, $200 per meal.

(That's not even taking into account the considerable extra value that the company gets in owning the results of my work.)

cenhyperion• 12 years ago

I'd gladly work an 11 hour day at a company that provided food if two of those hours were meals (lunch and dinner) and another hour was time spent in the gym/playing games. That's 8 hours of work, and three hours of free recreation that would have cost me a non-trivial sum of money elsewhere. I just wouldn't want that to be expected.

colordrops• 12 years ago

I hate to be cynical, but I think this statement is a well calculated PR move to make people comfortable with one of the most invasive possible devices there is. You are giving Google access to an always-on camera in your house!

jsolson• 12 years ago

"He thinks the lavish perks at many technology companies, especially the free on-campus meals, are a disguised form of mind control, designed to get employees to work 12- or 14-hour days."

I can't agree with this, and I have some experience with both sides of it.

I have worked at a company that does not provide much of anything in the way of perks (Amazon) and a company which is known for them (Google). I've NEVER felt pressured to put in more hours at Google, while at Amazon it was more or less a constant of existence.

As with all anecdotes, your mileage may vary, but I think it has little to do with the perks and more to do with broader company culture. At Amazon, the lack of perks and long hours become badges of honor that you share with your peers. Looking back on it, it feels rather toxic.

devindotcom• 12 years ago

$555m figure confirmed here:

https://nest.com/press/nest-and-dropcam-sign-acquisition-agr...

esbonsa3• 12 years ago

Hopefully they will now allow to stream on the local network and the Dropcam company will not disappear and render all these cameras useless...

marvin• 12 years ago

I don't want to spread any unwarranted negativity here, but does anyone know how this fits into Nest's business model? I get Dropcam's business model of letting people check in on their home when they are on the road, on vacation etc, but hasn't Nest's business model been data mining from the very beginning? How does placing cameras in customers' homes fit into this model?

I also wonder about the privacy policy question. Okay, so they won't share data with Google, but what are the restrictions of Nest employees to check out your cameras? At the very least, there are no technical limitations here and it's all a matter of policy.

Again, not intending to spread negativity but it would be interesting to see some discussion around these potential issues. Although I do hand over ridiculous amounts of private information to web companies (in reality, most of what's going on inside my head; there's plenty in my web-hosted diary that I've never told anyone), there is somewhere I would draw the line. And I think that line would go at uploading to the cloud what is going on inside my home, regardless of what the privacy policy says.

tsumnia• 12 years ago

I think it falls into a sort of "home automation/monitoring" model. As we move further into the "Internet of Things" spectrum, Google and Nest are just securing their place. Think about how Microsoft and Sony's gaming platforms continue to build on the idea of being the only device you need for your TV. I wouldn't be surprised if Nest sought to acquire someone like Fitbit for the same thing, monitoring health/fitness via the bracelet or weight scale; or an automated garage door opener company (if they did monitoring/diagnostic work when the car is in the garage).

Corrado2• 12 years ago

I think Apple is in this battle as well. With the new iOS 8 / Yosemite releases, they are targeting the home automation & health monitoring markets. Google & Microsoft had better have something to offer because Apple is getting ready to eat their lunch.

notatoad• 12 years ago

Nest's business model is to sell a product for a profit. From that perspective, it's the same as Dropcam.

More than the business model though, Nest's goal seems to be to use sensor data and usage patterns to provide home automation with as little management as possible. Dropcam is essentially just another sensor - they're already doing things like recognizing people in the video feed. It's a way to get more data into nest's algorithms, and to get sensors into more areas of your home.

stevengg• 12 years ago

so if google owns nest and nest nad owns dropcam if you have a dropcam and the NSA wants to come blackbag your house can they delete the video off the cloudhosting warnetlessly?

esbonsa3• 12 years ago

they can probably turn off your Internet connection/power warrantlessy so they don't have to worry about that...

gravity13• 12 years ago

It is beginning.

lgas• 12 years ago

Congrats, Greg!

steven2012• 12 years ago

I had a Dropcam and was excited for its remote monitoring capabilities. As a camera it is excellent and the cloud recording is really well done. I set it up and left for vacation for 3 weeks. During this time, I got so many notifications of activity (at least 20 per day) that it rendered it completely useless. It's an interesting idea but when I got my first notification of activity I got so scared someone had broken into my house I was freaking out. By the end of my vacation I just turned off the notification altogether and returned it when I came home.

billwilliams• 12 years ago

The reason for this acquisition is clear. Its why Nest was bought, its why Dropcam was bought. For Eric Shmidt's whole life his brother would turn down the thermostat and Eric would be too cold. He would accuse his brother and his brother would play innocent. It was infuriating.

But now. Billions of dollars later. Finally, Eric will always know who is screwing with his radiator.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

You mean Google is. Remember when Schneier said no too long ago that "Google is in the surveillance business"? Even I didn't take it so literally back then, but it turns out he was just slightly ahead of time with that characterization.

tlrobinson3• 12 years ago

Misread that as "Schmidt said" and was surprised but not totally shocked (e.x. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place")

sitkack2• 12 years ago

Schmidt or Zuckerberg?

aragot• 12 years ago

I don't understand their pricing.

$9.99 a month or $99 a year for a rolling 7 days of video. I guess most of that is a still, unattended image. Amazon cloud storage is cheap. It seems very expensive to me.

For example. My flatmate has a child. His ex-partner is prone to make stories in her head and go to the police with that. I'd be keen to host the kid until the father comes back from work, but I'm afraid of the ex-partner's accusations. I'm looking for a cloud storage service to store those hours for a few years, not to serve as legal proof, but to reassure the ex- that nothing weird happened. With Dropcam, that would cost me a few thousands dollars of storage per year, or am I mistaken?

Corrado2• 12 years ago

I think you can export the video snippets and save them to local storage. This would allow you to keep as much video as you want, basically for free. It would be nice to have it linked in to Google Drive so that you can store selected video snippets there.

domlebo70• 12 years ago

I work for a startup providing a similar product to Dropcam. The difference being we are free, and you can choose from a variety of supported cameras (we have ~ 30 supported cameras).

What do you guys think? http://www.cammy.com/

ARussell• 12 years ago

How does Cammy make money? I wish that were in the FAQ, since Cammy is free.

Nest is acquiring Dropcam

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