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Comment by ZeroCool2u | Hacker News Reader

I'm not saying that I necessarily agree, but the general consensus on HN seems to be that Broadcom is now less of a tech company and more of a holding company that raids others, for example VMWare, and extracts all value to the detriment of customers and the acquired company.

I don't think that's completely wrong, but it's a big company and I'm sure there are some better areas of the company than others.

View on HN

Broadcom has some really good chips and their semi-custom chip business is pretty successful. HN doesn't understand hardware so they don't know this.

Try asking all those happy vmware customers. Sometimes technical proficiency is completely irrelevant.

> HN doesn't understand hardware so they don't know this.

HN doesn't understand business in general. I miss the good old days on HN when you actually saw execs or actual SMEs shooting the shit.

Now it's just Reddit and LessWrong refugees based on account creation date.

I think the internet changed all over.

It's a sign that we're moving on to greener pastures.

Sucks for the new generation that think everything needs an app to work.

The internet was better at feeling less corporate a decade ago.

I think it's completely wrong in the context of its role as an ASIC partner. There's a very short list of companies with all the IP needed for these cutting-edge ASICs and Broadcom/Avago might be the best of them. And to be clear, they've developed that IP themselves, just as they've always done. Those that think they're just a "holding company" haven't actually worked with them.

It’s confusing. The PE buyout built a holding/looting company and owned Broadcom, and took the Broadcom name.

So both are correct. Broadcom is a legit important hw company, and it is a PE holding company that buys and loots tech companies (like VMware)

it's no longer Broadcom

Avago Technologies (owned by corporate raiders) bought Broadcom, then took its name for itself

its ticker is still AVAG

It is AVGO

yep sorry, typo!

Additionally, having worked with some of their network devices at the driver level, they seem to be kludge piled on top of hack poured over a soup of workarounds for hardware bugs. Maybe they've gotten better recently, but just looking at their drivers, it didn't paint a great picture.

Oh god, I’d paint all hardware companies that way!

Having been on both sides, I’m continually shocked that stuff even works.

> general consensus on HN

General consensus on HN is generally wrong.

General consensus on HN is generally wrong.

I think everyone here would agree with that.

;)

this makes sense since the general consensus on HN is that any general consensus on HN is right so if the general consensus on HN that any general consensus on HN is right is wrong then any general consensus on HN could be wrong

Is there somewhere the general consensus is generally right?

"Journalists" seem to trust twitter an awful lot...

math departments

Broadcom is on track to spend 10bn on RND this year. Basically a pure-play patent troll!

Don’t they make the WiFi chips in iPhones?

They make every kind of chip for networking: WiFi, Bluetooth, home routers, cable modems, fiber, switches, NICs, DPUs, etc. And that's 1/Nth of their business.

Broadcom, the current company, is a PE firm that bought Broadcom, the chip maker, long ago and is wearing its skin.

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