News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coronavirus. Parent comment

Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by topkai22 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:08PM (#22539124)
I think the amount of international travel is huge part (the Houston rodeo might have 2M+ attendees, but I'll bet 90% of them are from Texas), but so are economics- It wouldn't suprise me if cancelling CONEXPOCONAGG or the Houston Rodeo would bankrupt the sponsoring organizations, whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by departure on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:55PM (#22539588)
SXSW in Austin was recently cancelled and the organization is considering bankruptcy. They laid off 1/3 of their full-time staff due to the cancellation.

https://twitter.com/efindell/status/1237156566564048898?s=19 https://www.wsj.com/articles/south-by-southwest-hit-hard-by-...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by jacquesm on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @06:31PM (#22540567)
They won't be the last. There will be plenty of companies going under due to this.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by ghaff on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:24PM (#22539302)
>whereas google won't even notice cancelling their events

That's something of an overstatement. Companies don't put these things on for fun. But, yeah, they'll manage. And, to a first approximation, all the other companies and individuals who were sponsoring/attending/etc. will manage too and relatively few individuals will be directly and personally out of pocket.

That said, there will be startups who were planning launches around the Google events, there will be indirect downstream effects on people who organize events, do professional speaking, etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by wpietri on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @04:52PM (#22539571)
Google doesn't exactly do it for fun, but I'm sure it isn't a significant source of revenue. Given that most corporate conferences are essentially about marketing, the incentive is to be break-even, or even run at a loss. That's very different than people trying to make a living from an event.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Engineer who attended cybersecurity event contracts coron... by topkai22 on Tuesday March 10, 2020 @09:25PM (#22542010)
Yeah, obviously it's not an easy decision, but my definition of "won't even notice" is that it even if it's a $20M write off, it's like 0.06% of their 2019 net income. For a lot of independent events (like SWSX) canceling the event means losing most of their operating budget.
[ Parent | on HN ]