Google's $32 bn for cloud upstart a leap of faith

IT'S NOT OFTEN you see big tech firms getting pushed around.

- CHRIS HUGHES Bloomberg

Upstart Wiz has just squeezed Google owner Alphabet to pony up $32 billion for a privately owned five-year-old cybersecurity firm. Even if the search giant can comfortably afford this deal, investors may need reassurance it hasn't abandoned financial discipline in its pursuit of strategic ambitions in the cloud.

Alphabet tried and failed to acquire Wiz for $23 billion in July last year. At the time, Wiz's founders told staff independence and a potential initial public offering were a better course. Securing a price around 40% higher in less than a year shows just how much Alphabet wants to own this asset.

Cybersecurity is a crowded field with no shortage of takeover targets. Why Wiz? One differentiator is that it's focused on cloud computing from the get-go, its software helping corporations identify and triage the vulnerabilities in their cloud-based data.