U.S. intelligence intervened with DOJ to push HPE-Juniper merger
axios.com
axios.com
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-29/top-doj-a... ("Top DOJ Antitrust Officials Removed Over HPE-Juniper Settlement" (July 29))
> "Senate Democrats alleged the removals were the result of improper political influence and lawmakers are pushing the federal judge overseeing HPE’s acquisition to hold a lengthy review of the antitrust settlement."
> "Roger Alford, the top deputy to the Justice Department’s antitrust chief Gail Slater, and William Rinner, who led the department’s merger enforcement, were dismissed Monday, according to people familiar with the situation."
The idea that even allies will be using US networking equipment in a couple decades seems implausible. Everyone is well-aware that any boxes coming out of the US are as likely to be tapped as ones coming out of china.
I fail to see how this impeded Huawei.
(Source: worked for a scrappy little disruptor that was bought out and cannibalized)
Look at Juniper specifically. In 2021, their revenue roughly broke down as 40% service provider, 35% enterprise campuses, 25% cloud. In 2025, that had shifted to 45% enterprise campuses, 30% service provider, and 25% cloud. That shift is mostly reflected by how much money they pumped into Mist, and how successful that was.
Scrappy little upstarts have a _really_ hard time selling networking equipment to service providers and enterprises, who require tons of arcane features that take a long time to build and validate. They also operate very much on reputation, and rely on training pipelines outside of their own organizations (i.e., certifications). On the SP side (and the more modern enterprise side) there's also the significant issue of integration with other IT systems. At that scale, people aren't just command line jockeys that log into a router to provision something - Comcast can't operate like that, they need well defined API integrations with their provisioning system.
It is interesting and noteworthy that HPE's interest in Juniper is mostly due to the success of Mist, which _was_ a scrappy little upstart that got purchased by Juniper in 2019 (???). Mist (as a product line) only got successful once it was backed by Juniper, a known player. They had a much, much harder time selling to big accounts before that.
However, it's not a random scrappy little upstart, it got started by very senior people from Cisco that couldn't get their vision executed at Cisco. Specifically, Bob Friday (who co-founded Airespace in 2001, which was purchased by Cisco and directly led to Cisco wireless controllers), and Sujay Hajela, who was an SVP responsible for enterprise and wireless at Cisco, having led the Meraki purchase. More than a decade later, Meraki - another upstart, I guess - still isn't aimed at much other than SMB.
That Mist made it as an newcomer is the exception to the rule and entirely due to those very specific people and their very specific contacts. I wouldn't be surprised if at all if Mist had initially been fully intended to be a spin-out from Cisco with the express purpose of folding them back in a decade later if they were successful enough, and it just so happened that they got snagged up by Juniper first.
"Normal" startups in this space that aren't just spin-outs designed to come back to the mothership if they're successful are incredibly rare.
I realize it’s impossible to predict what comes next, but I’m curious about analogs to this merger and what one could reasonably expect to happen over the next many years.
My philosophy is showing in that I don’t see these deals as good for competition or the market in general, so I’m (perhaps hopelessly) looking for the silver lining here.
I’m opposed to these mega corps and looking (hoping) for some silver lining here that gives me some hope. Sibling comments have educated on that front.
We need companies owned by the people that built the company. Not by the C-level executives that are appointed by a board of billionaire lackeys, bankers, trust fund kiddies who are hellbent on flipping a profit at all costs.
Also of course more regulation, and higher corporate tax. Get rid of the stock manipulation tactic known as stock buybacks that only encourage short term growth/pump in price of stock.
This is why Boeing can make as many bad planes as they want. They’re part of the US government and they will always “win” the game we pretend they play against other vendors.
Same goes for Lockheed, Raytheon, AT&T, Microsoft, HP, and Dell. Delta. Probably also Ford and GM.
AWS is trying to get on this list (see the whole JEDI thing that was gift-wrapped for them until Oracle got mad and noisy about the corruption) and almost certainly will eventually if they haven’t already.
Circumstances suggest that Apple (because iPhone use aiding in global surveillance due to iMessage), Google (because Gmail and search), and Meta (because WhatsApp) are similarly favored (although not totally integrated like Microsoft and Boeing and AT&T) over any competitors, due to their massive and often-overlooked strategic geopolitical importance, both domestic and abroad. There are unimaginably big perks to playing ball with the state, just ask Palantir.
Others I would assume get special treatment: Comcast, Level 3, Verizon. Probably also Visa.
Good luck trying to compete with any of them in the market on merit when the people who own and control the market don’t want their buddies or surveillance partners to lose.
It’s mostly about the transfer of MANY billions of dollars of public tax money to the friends and associates of those who direct that money. China is just a convenient excuse. We all know the US as a unit is totally incapable of catching up to Chinese technology output or development pace (save for isolated pockets like Apple and SpaceX who thrive despite being in the US, not because of it).
Most of the functions of the state are around allocation of ostensibly-public money, and little else, I find.
Probably? GM was literally nationalized for a period not that long ago.
I wish this were true. It is not. Huawei has very famously (and publicly admitted) to stealing intellectual property from US tech companies, in many cases through conducting corporate espionage. Huawei has also had many of their products independently audited by various governments and found to contain intentional security flaws or backdoors.
You could easily make the argument that clearly US companies are just as bad, after all most US tech companies got funding to start from the CIA and clearly the intelligence community is really involved w/ Juniper and HPE (Dual EC anyone?). Both sides doing something doesn't absolve anyone who has to make a decision from understanding the implications of it, though.
This is more than just putting the thumb on the scale, it's a battle between a world of Pax Americana and a world where China runs things.
> We all know the US as a unit is totally incapable of catching up to Chinese technology output or development pace (save for isolated pockets like Apple and SpaceX who thrive despite being in the US, not because of it).
You mean the same US tech industry that has invented basically every modern computer technology, including the most cutting edge technologies available now? Are you kidding me? Nobody can possibly take this statement seriously. China has leg irons on because of US sanctions, but nonetheless the historical record is pretty clear that China excels at copying and scaling, but not so much invention. Creativity requires freedom of thought, something in horribly short supply within China.
Maybe they really wanted to ensure that Juniper dies a slow death ?
Aruba has been pretty lackluster under HPE, so we’ll see where Juniper takes them. Or is taken.
He has been known to work/consult/lobby on behalf of Chinese (and other foreign country) companies to push or backchannel in DC for favorable outcomes in US. [1]
[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/patels-roster-of-forei...
https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Against-King-Kash-Patel/dp/19555...
Shitty people seem to believe that everyone is like themselves; they assume that others would do the same shitty things they would do in a similar situation. They assign the emotional reactions and responses that they would have in a given set of circumstances to others, even if there is no evidence to support it.
I suspect this is also where nuclear brinksmanship comes from. “We would conduct a sneak attack first strike on them, if we could, so they must be planning on doing it to us.”
I think this is also why most cops don’t see anything wrong with breaking the law to carry out what they believe their duty to be. They see the world through the lens of criminal behavior.
Corrupt politicians know that they would be availing themselves of every possible option to personally enrich themselves and push their agenda; they assume that every politician in power must also be doing this and are just getting away with it.
Anytime either side is pushing something the other side disagrees with, they claim the opposition is being partisan. Then there are the flip flops, like claiming the debt ceiling is a big deal, then ignoring the issue once you're the one in power. Complain about heavy handed tactics when dealing with protests or "legal" pot, but not about guns. Have the IRS audit groups you don't like. Etcetera
People got riled up when Biden was 'violating the Constitution' with multiple attempts at loan forgiveness. Some of the same people who hated Biden for this 'unconstitutional' behaviour voted for Trump because he promised to get rid of the Department of Education, in the misguided hope that their own student loans would be eliminated with the department. I don't quite know how we got to this level of stupid in the US - it may have always been there, just easier to see via social media?
Indeed, but it's not just the administration that has issues whenever Republicans control it.
I distinctly 'member McConnell filibustering his own bill, the Republicans sabotaging ACA (aided, of course, by Democrats trying to achieve bipartisan ownership even though they had a majority at the time [1]), or worst of all the Republicans refusing the appointment of Merrick Garland (citing that Obama was a lame-duck outgoing President) [3], only to do just the same thing with Barrett at the end of 2020, right before the elections [4].
Republicans, when in power, demand that Democrats cooperate with them (and Democrats are spineless enough to always play ball) - and when Democrats are in power, even if they have majorities, they obstruct in all ways possible. It's madness.
[1] https://theweek.com/articles/469675/mitch-mcconnells-amazing...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland_Supreme_Court_...
==Six nominees received no supporting votes from any Democratic senators or independent senators who caucus with Democrats: Hegseth, Russell Vought for director of the Office of Management and Budget, Gabbard, Kennedy, Howard Lutnick for secretary of commerce, and Linda McMahon for secretary of education. ==
https://ballotpedia.org/How_senators_voted_on_Trump_Cabinet_...
Political topics can obviously be far more important than anything else on HN's frontpage, but that doesn't make the flamewar style of discussion ok on this site. It's repetitive and indignant, and those are the two qualities which most destroy what we're trying for, i.e. gratifying curiosity and facilitating curious exchange.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Political topics can obviously be far more important than anything else on HN's frontpage, but that doesn't make the flamewar style of discussion ok on this site. It's repetitive and indignant, and those are the two qualities which most destroy what we're trying for, i.e. gratifying curiosity and facilitating curious exchange.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Edit: your account has unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines, such as by arguing aggressively with other users. We eventually have to ban accounts that do this. From a quick look I don't think you're quite over that line yet, but it could easily get there, so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and recalibrate.
People need to have some goddamn principals. Corruption and backroom dealing is bad no matter who's doing it. Even if you like who's doing it you should still not like it because at the very least it de-legitimizes your cause.
Every accusation is an admission.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/every_accusation_is_a_confess...
Anyone expecting less than nakedly open corruption and self-dealing is not paying attention.
I think it's just too painful for people to admit how fast their country is going down the drain. I like to imagine how decent Germans must have felt in 1938. How did they keep themselves sane?
Meh, I don't have too much of a problem with this one. A number of US Presidents, both modern and long-since dead, have been known to indulge in golfing [1].
There's so many truly bad things Trump has done, him visiting a golf course is hardly extraordinary in comparison.
[1] https://www.scga.org/blog/13174/every-presidential-golfer-ra...
He gives smoke and mirrors with "I don't take salary" but it's in plain sight he's profiting from his seat, which no other president did at this magnitude in recent times. They made Jimmy sell his peanut farm.
That is, allowing it to become a normative conversation with no pushback that "government is bad" is a large part of how we got here.
Yes, every now and then an ridiculously shameless person will emerge. No, that isn't everyone.