Tailscale raises $100M

Funding scares me. It bring sharks onboard who do not share the same vision. They will demand revenue and ROI above all else. I like Tailscale but I hate this business model down to the core (Netlify as an example). Tailscale was doing fine as it was, capable people there already. It quickly became an "exit type of business", too quickly.

These companies usually bring something really easy to use, let people onboard and modify their network/DNS/etc to hell until they get vendor stuck and then they squeeze every possible dollar out of their pockets. Once you're in, after days or weeks of fine tuning, after you managed to pollute your codebase with their configs and IP addresses, it's hard to get out.

I suspect those "free slots" will change soon ,but we won't see those types of graphs anywhere soon and be prepared to get charged for bandwidth and everything else possible.

> They will demand revenue and ROI above all else.

I don't think this is true. They mostly demand growth over all else.

Tailscale investor here. I can assure you we share the same vision with the founders.

You cannot do that. You might personally share a vision with somebody identifiable. But the vision you say you share is anyway not implemented.

Make the service usable without depending on some internet behemoth who might yank my authentication credentials anytime without notice, and we can talk.

vision: (noun) the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom. (verb) imagine

> Tailscale investor here. I can assure you we share the same vision.

Outside of say, Garry Tan and Leo Polovets, who could be considered regulars, it’s rare that an investor shows up in the HN comments. Hi!

Your comment is reassuring, but the reality is that other investors will look at their portfolio companies, review the competitive landscape, then decide that they no longer share the vision, in the not too distant future.

Vision is one thing, shared vision entirely another.

I have no reason to mistrust your vision or current intent, but I also have no reason to believe that you are stronger than the weight of $100M dollars.

The problem is that vision has a pretty poor track record when going head-to-head with incentives.

For those curious: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephruscio.

Seed investor in Tailscale since 2019.

Growth as a precursor for revenue.

Massive growth just means you can dominate the market then have more flexibility on the price you'll charge.

Tailscale raised a Series A two years ago. They've been doing fine as it was – running a venture funded, high growth startup.

I am wary of investors wrecking incentives for founders but that ship sails when you raise an A round. They've done an incredibly good job for me in that time, I think they'll keep on doing that.

Why would their free service change? They're going to make money off big companies. They're not going to make money off me with a bait-n-switch to capture my $10/mo personal budget.

My use case is like many others' here: accessing a remote Raspberry Pi. Please do not start charging for this kind of simple setup ! If you want to charge for IoT-type stuff, add a new layer of added value on top of the current wonderful free service.