Wiz Rejects Historic Bid From Google

Recently, Google pursued its largest-ever acquisition by negotiating to buy cybersecurity startup Wiz for around $23 billion. Wiz, founded in 2020, specializes in securing cloud environments across different platforms like AWS and Azure.

The potential deal aimed to strengthen Google Cloud’s offerings and expand its reach beyond advertising revenue, which has dominated its income. Earlier this year, Wiz raised $1 billion in funding and had been actively expanding its operations from New York to several other U.S. cities and internationally in Tel Aviv.

Following Google’s bid to buy the tech company, Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz rejected the acquisition offer from Google’s parent company Alphabet. With this monumental decision from Wiz, this proposed deal achieved two milestones in history. First, it became the largest bid proposed by Google, and second, it became the largest bid by Google to be firmly rejected.

The CEO of Wiz, Assaf Rappaport, shared details of his decision through an internal memo. In it, Rappaport expressed his gratitude for Google’s interest but went on to confirm his decision as well as the company’s goal to instead achieve $1 billion in revenue independently before starting to sell shares publicly.

Per the BBC, a source familiar with the deal said that the offer was “very tempting.” However, the company “believed it was big enough to go it alone and attempt to become the biggest cyber-security company in the world.”

Moreover, Google has decided to abandon its plans to eliminate and replace third-party cookies in its Chrome browser. Initially scheduled for early 2022, this move aimed to address privacy concerns while allowing advertisers to track users for targeted ads. Instead, Google will introduce a new browsing experience in Chrome that gives users informed choices about their data privacy settings. This decision follows industry feedback and concerns about its impact on advertisers and publishers. Despite proposing alternatives like “Federated Learning of Cohorts” (FLoC), Google faced criticisms and opted to engage regulators and the industry in discussions about the new approach.