Ask HN: What Went Wrong at SilentCircle and Blackphone

8 pointsignoramous2 comments

The company had a great founder-market fit (PGP inventor Phil Zimmermann, Apple's Jon Callas [0]), and raised $130MM in funding to pull off the Blackphone [1], built on SilentOS based on Android [2]. I could totally see a need for privacy oriented offering in the space (esp since Apple's PR is getting all serious about it). They weren't too soon to the market either (2015/16)?

From your perspective, what could have gone wrong?

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20160309214229/https://www.silentcircle.com/our-story/

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160312085934/https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/devices/

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160312090048/https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/devices/silent-os/

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