Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev

Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by secabeen on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @01:11PM (#34430491)

The entire finance industry has a disdain for "lifestyle businesses", that just generate enough profits for the founders and employees to live on, but will never generate an exit beyond that. I get why, but for utility products, a solid lifestyle for the employees and a useful product for users is enough, and should be enough.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jrochkind1 on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @01:22PM (#34430659)

And can be enough if you don't need large quantities of investment capital. If you don't _need_ it, but _want_ it to get fabulously wealthy... well, "lifestyle business" is not the path to that, by definition.

It's almost like the interests of those who want to get fabulously wealthy -- whether founders or investors -- become misaligned with the interests of the users, even steeper/faster than when you "just" have a "lifestyle business".

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jjeaff on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:03PM (#34431315)

The thing is, founders can get fabulously wealthy with a lifestyle business or at least very wealthy, but it might take longer. But all the established money seeking rent parked at VC firms can't get a cut if you don't play ball with them.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by sirsinsalot on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:30PM (#34431735)

Millions, even tens of millions, for founders isn't unheard of at all for small "lifestyle" businesses.

Not VC billions, but fuck you money is certainly doable.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jrochkind1 on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @03:44PM (#34432817)

I don't know if a couple million is "fuck you" money in 2023 (enough to never work again and eventually retire while living a fairly luxurious lifestyle?), but point taken.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by sirsinsalot on Thursday January 19, 2023 @05:28AM (#34438778)

If you can't say "fuck you" with a couple million in the bank, tax paid, in 2023 then you're living WAY outside your means.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jrochkind1 on Thursday January 19, 2023 @07:27AM (#34439591)

I can say "fuck you" with no money at all, since I can still talk for free!

How much do you need to take a, say, $130K income for the rest of your life? (Which is still not really enough to live at a wealthy luxury standard). Depends on how old you are and how long you'll live, as well as anticipated rates of investment return. But it's almost definitely more than 2 million.

https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/never-have-to-work-ag...

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jjeaff on Saturday January 21, 2023 @05:32PM (#34471378)

FU money has nothing to do with living a wealthy lifestyle. It's having all your basic needs taken care of so you don't have to do things you don't want to do to earn money.

See John Goodman in the Big Lebowski for a full definition.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jrochkind1 on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @03:43PM (#34432797)

Yeah, wealthy enough if not billionaire, true.

> But all the established money seeking rent parked at VC firms can't get a cut if you don't play ball with them.

OK, but why does a founder care about that? Either they think their business model can't get them to a sustainable lifestyle business without external capital investment... or they want to get more-than-lifestyle-business wealthy, right?

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by jjeaff on Saturday January 21, 2023 @05:30PM (#34471359)

I'm sure that's what they think. I don't know if the data really indicates that going to VC route will make you richer. It could certainly make you more publicly successful.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by tunesmith on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @01:29PM (#34430779)

Lifestyle businesses have a big flaw in American culture though; our safety net is not enough to make "meets expenses" a tenable long-term approach. We basically have to aim for a big wad of savings for later in life, which incentivizes going for exits and cash-outs.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by fortuna86 on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:15PM (#34431485)

This also means creation of billion dollar global platforms that Europe and other parts of the world have never accomplished. Trade offs.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by ok_dad on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:23PM (#34431611)

I feel so happy that we have created "billion dollar global platforms" instead of universal healthcare or ensuring everyone was sleeping indoors. Woo-hoo!

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by fortuna86 on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @09:50PM (#34436159)

Are you implying that there are no homeless people in Europe? Or problems with poverty or access to healthcare?

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by nightski on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @02:23PM (#34431617)

Seeing as only a few % of Americans achieve what you are saying I don’t think it’s strictly true. Maybe if you want to fatfire or something

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by secabeen on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @03:34PM (#34432679)

Perhaps, I would hope that a sustainable lifestyle business would be able to pay employees and founders enough to build a comfortable retirement nest egg through savings, investments, and compound interest.

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Re:Bitwarden Acquires Passwordless.dev by TedDoesntTalk on Wednesday January 18, 2023 @04:24PM (#34433287)

VueScan (hamrick.com) is a very good example of a successful lifestyle business (first release in 1998). The founder and his son work on the product full-time. I don't think they have any other staff, but I could be wrong.

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