[HN Gopher] Samsara S-1
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Samsara S-1
Author : finolex1
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-11-26 18:28 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sec.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sec.gov)
| moltenguardian wrote:
| The best piece of advice I heard for reading financial reports:
| start at the bottom, read your way up. All the juicy stuff is
| hidden in the bottom (like losses), while the pretty,
| extrapolated ARR graphs are up at the top.
| hazemotes wrote:
| Samsara, in both Buddhism and Hinduism, is something to be
| escaped. The connotation is either downright negative or at least
| sobering. Why name your company this?
| lordleft wrote:
| I'm Indian and I had the exact same reaction. It's like naming
| your company Dukka. Or maybe it's more like the Sanskrit Maya,
| which I suppose is not a completely negative term (but can be
| in certain Indian philosophical-theological discourses).
|
| EDIT: My mother just pointed out to me that Samsara can also
| mean "talk", which is exactly what it means in my native
| language, malayalam. I've just never seen it spelt out that
| way. If that's the meaning they're going for, it's actually
| quite apt!
| Tzeak wrote:
| It could be the "rebirth" of the Meraki platform - I don't
| think the cofounders are malayali so while a Malayalam word
| seems more apt, i think it's less likely.
| erie wrote:
| In Arabic too, it means trying to mediate to get commission.
| globalise83 wrote:
| Once you IPO your material worries are gone and you can move
| into the next circle.
| erulabs wrote:
| > Samsara (sNsaar) is a Sanskrit/Pali word that means "world"
|
| I am not a Buddhist, but is "the world" something to be
| "escaped"? I can't find a matching definition for it to imply
| escape.
| danvayn wrote:
| The physical world, yeah.
|
| The specific aim or mission depends on the school, but the
| focus in Buddhism is always on escaping duhka
| ('modern/societal ills') in an attempt to break or transcend
| the cycle.
| ottomanbob wrote:
| In buddhism, "the world" is material, personal, and full of
| suffering. It is something to let go.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Doesn't this accurately describe IoT implementations?
|
| You're looking at transcending the physical, while
| simultaneously being trapped by and having to deal with its
| messy realities.
|
| Seems a pretty apt metaphor.
| stewbrew wrote:
| Maybe, some people prefer nirvana.
| crdrost wrote:
| Samsara is not just "world"... The etymology is Sam/Sara,
| "through/motion" and the idea is that it refers to an endless
| going-through-the-motions, an endless cycle of dying, and re-
| dying, and being reborn as a slug and suffering as slugs do,
| and re-dying, and being reborn as a human and suffering as
| humans do, and re-dying, and being reborn as a god and
| suffering as gods do,and re-dying. You've "been there done
| that" for anything that you now think is some great
| aspiration for this life.
|
| A proper translation of "Samsara, Inc." might be "Weariness,
| Inc." or "Ennui, Inc." ... It's not just the world, but the
| world with specific reference to this way that everyone is
| just going through the motions.
| cko wrote:
| > 153. Through many a birth in samsara have I wandered in
| vain, seeking the builder of this house (of life). Repeated
| birth is indeed suffering!
|
| https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.11.budd..
| ..
|
| I happen to have this as a tattoo actually. A relic from my
| Buddhist days.
| shoto_io wrote:
| Read this thread carefully and you'll understand. It's
| marketing genius.
|
| I wouldn't have remember the name of the company. But thanks to
| you and your fellows here I will. I can even tell a story
| around it.
| ottomanbob wrote:
| Yes, kind of baffling name choice? I suspect they totally
| misunderstood the concept as a replenishing / refreshing cycle
| rather than the self-perpetuating nature of suffering.
| omarfarooq wrote:
| Or perhaps they are more to privvy to the depth and flavor of
| Buddhism than the average HN commentor. Nagarjuna says that
| samsara is nirvana and nirvana is samsara.
|
| Similarly, Saraha says: "Here in this body are the sacred
| rivers: here are the sun and moon as well as all the
| pilgrimage places... I have not encountered another temple as
| blissful as my own body."
|
| In short, the gravy is all gravy.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| Per Wikipedia
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%83s%C4%81ra):
|
| > Popularly, it is the cycle of death and rebirth.
|
| Maybe it is because there is a "popular" definition that the
| casual observer wouldn't interpret as something to be escaped?
| Western audiences often borrow words and concepts from other
| cultures, that often have deep meaning behind them, and reduce
| them to some shallow commercial one-liner that their audiences
| can latch onto.
|
| I guess I have a different question about a company picking
| such a name - is it appropriate ethically? It feels like
| they've co-opted a term that has a particular cultural and
| religious meaning, will probably mispronounce it in all their
| marketing, will popularize a shallow understanding of this term
| rather than the deeper source material (as has happened with
| terms like karma, yoga, and other such popularized terms of
| Hindu origin), and also place a trademark on something that has
| always existed as a free to use concept. I recognize that one
| of the founders is Indian, but it still doesn't sit well with
| me.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > Samsara, in both Buddhism and Hinduism, is something to be
| escaped
|
| In other words it is something you have to deal with, you can't
| just ignore it. It is not something to be ignored. A company
| that helps us deal with Samsara is great.
|
| And here if it is IoT and makes it easier to deal with "things"
| it allows us to escape the trouble of managing them.
| yumraj wrote:
| Samsara, more like Sansar (sNsaar) means World. One _may_ want
| to escape the world but there is no negative connotation that I
| 'm aware of.
|
| I'm a Hindu and speak Hindi.
| nsenifty wrote:
| Samsara is the correct Sanskrit (more like Samskrta)
| pronunciation and the original meaning is the endless birth
| and death cycle caused by attachment.
|
| The Hindi vernacular Sansaar indeed means the physical world
| just like Samsara in Kannada (and other Southern languages?)
| means Family. Both the world and family are due to
| attachment.
| [deleted]
| rueynshard wrote:
| Samsara's founders also previously started and sold Meraki to
| Cisco for $1.2 billion. Pretty rare to have founded 2 unicorns in
| ~15 years.
| larrywright wrote:
| I've never heard of them EXCEPT for the fact that for months I
| saw their ads before every video I watched on Youtube. I kept
| wondering why I was seeing them because it's a product that I
| clearly have no use for.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Ive always wondered why companies do that. I've gotten adverts
| for Airbus and Lockheed Martin but I can assure you I am in no
| position to buy a fighter jet.
| vultour wrote:
| Are you in Washington DC? I heard the ads around there can
| get wild.
| robryan wrote:
| Some of it is about improving their public perception. We get
| a bunch of ads in Australia from mining companies trying to
| let everyone know they are digging up materials for renewable
| projects and not just coal.
| DevKoala wrote:
| Maybe bad targeting or perhaps brand recognition. The
| conversion model works. It is about convincing as many
| individuals this is a reputable company so that when the
| person signing the check asks around nobody bats an eye.
| lalos wrote:
| Improve brand awareness pre-IPO, it's like clockwork.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Another case of a company "going public" but insiders retaining
| total control. I guess we'll have to wait for the next market
| crash to get rid of these fake public companies.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _we'll have to wait for the next market crash to get rid of
| these fake public companies_
|
| Given the lack of evidence for founder-controlled companies
| underperforming the market, I wouldn't hold my breath.
| Particularly if the business is not reliant on outside capital
| ( _e.g._ Uber under Kalanick, who was ousted despite having
| super-voting privileges).
| bradleyjg wrote:
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=492353
| ttul wrote:
| A significant number of publicly traded companies -- and not
| just new ones in tech - are tightly controlled by founding
| shareholders who have special shares. This is not an unusual
| practice even for public companies.
|
| I don't think there's anything wrong with taking your company
| public and retaining troll through special shares. Anyone who
| is able to do that massive built a pretty great company,
| otherwise the market would not support it.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| > Anyone who is able to do that massive built a pretty great
| company, otherwise the market would not support it.
|
| In a normal market, I suspect many of these would not be
| supported, or would at least have to take a big discount to
| PE. But we are in the era when money pours into doge coin.
| You can't conclude anything in such an environment.
| mushufasa wrote:
| that's a really impressive growth rate and amount of revenue.
| never heard of them!
| finolex1 wrote:
| Their main customers are in blue-collar industries (transport,
| utilities, etc.), so they are pretty unknown outside that
| world.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| I listened to Sanjit speak at HackMIT several years ago. He is a
| really brilliant man and a real innovator. I'll definitely be
| investing in this IPO.
| sjaak wrote:
| There is a beautiful movie by the same name. Go see it if you
| haven't!
|
| https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0770802/
| davedx wrote:
| My quick stab at FA:
|
| Pros
|
| - Revenue growth and gross margins are really impressive
|
| - Big sales and marketing spend that seems to be effective at
| growing top line
|
| - Costs under control - loss from operations decreasing with an
| obvious path to profitability while still scaling up very fast
|
| Cons
|
| - "We face intense and increasing competition", combined with
|
| - $55B total addressable market
|
| Assume Samsara manages to reach 20% market share of this market,
| that means they will be able to grow a maximum of 20x after IPO.
| Compare this with TSLA who had $15M and grew to $31B (2000x).
| Probably not the best comparison, and TAM is growing too, but it
| makes me wonder how much further this company can grow? And at
| this growth rate? It is quite a niche industry (IoT).
| throwawaysea wrote:
| It also notes a 21% CAGR from 2021-2024 for the TAM, so their
| growth ceiling may be higher than it looks initially.
| nicolashahn wrote:
| Interviewed with them back in 2017. Was very impressed with what
| they were doing and the apparent talent of their team. Didn't get
| an offer because I hadn't leetcoded enough but left a good
| impression on me.
| atian wrote:
| Having interacted with members from Samsara's team
| nonprofessionally, I also hold them in high regard.
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