Top all-time · #4330
SafeGraph
Company blog · safegraph.com/blogdatabusiness
SafeGraph is the company blog at safegraph.com, writing about data and business. Since 2020, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 26 times, most often “Data-as-a-Service Bible (2019)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link SafeGraph's blog and the World of DaaS podcast, mainly Auren Hoffman's 'Data as a Service' writing on businesses that sell data and ML access. Other links cite its privacy policy or location-data industry.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
SafeGraph is the trusted location data platform powering accurate mapping, analytics, and site selection for businesses worldwide.
Most-linked posts?
- /privacy-policy2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-03-07
- Data-as-a-Service Bible (2019)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-08-13
- Daniel Gross: Why Energy Is the Best Predictor of Talent2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-09-25
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-07
- It’s Our Moral Obligation to Make Data More Accessible2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-03-31
What Hacker News says?
It was probably adtech companies. There are a bunch who basically pay apps to use their api and then take the data. Apple was right to kill that imho. IIRC that was foursquare's pivot There is also lot/lon in programmatic bid requests, but I don't think they're super accurate or granular and lots of fraud. (could be wrong, just from my small experience buy side using DSPs seeing lots of lat/lons being smack in the m…
Comment linking /guides/mobile-location-data-providers
on “The most unethical thing I was asked to build while working at Twitter in 2015”Submitted Daniel Gross: Why Energy Is the Best Predictor of Talent as a story · 114 points
HN discussionLots of entities sell this, right now: * https://www.advanresearch.com/ * https://www.placer.ai/ * https://www.onemata.com/ * https://www.safegraph.com/ It comes from the telcos directly (think Sprint phones with custom OS installs), it comes from popular mobile SDKs (e.g. why Yahoo bought Flurry), and it comes from apps who simply sell the data directly. There is one journalist who actively covers this sort of PII/…
Comment linking /
on “The most unethical thing I was asked to build while working at Twitter in 2015”Submitted DaaS Bible 2.0: Why Data Standards Matter as a story · 28 points
HN discussionI agree-most of my observations here do not apply broadly beyond the satellite imagery. One of my favorite resources for learning how "data as a service" businesses work (when they work) is the "World of DaaS" podcast that Auren Hoffman hosts: https://www.safegraph.com/podcasts
Comment linking /podcasts
on “The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want”Submitted Covid-19's Impact on U.S. Commerce via Foot Traffic Data as a story · 12 points
HN discussionSafeGraph | Full-time | SF or Remote | https://www.safegraph.com/ SafeGraph's mission is to make the world’s data open for innovation. We focus on selling data about physical places in the U.S. We are looking for software engineers to join our small, high-leverage engineering team remotely or in San Francisco. We are a recently profitable Series A startup with a team of 25 and growing. Our CEO and founder is the fou…
Comment linking /careers?gh_jid=4530231002
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2020)”Submitted The Cost of Free Data as a story · 6 points
HN discussionthis is more related to the previous a16z article on the topic but I found "Data as a Service" by Auren Hoffman a great read for thinking about businesses that sell access to machine learning models https://www.safegraph.com/blog/data-as-a-service-bible-every...
Comment linking /blog/data-as-a-service-bible-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-running-daas-companies
on “Adventures in Improving AI Economics”Submitted It’s Our Moral Obligation to Make Data More Accessible as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSafegraph, for anyone interested. https://www.safegraph.com/privacy-policy > To avoid having your device’s mobile advertising identifiers (and location data associated with it) used for our services, [...] iOS mobile devices, Settings -> Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit Ad Tracking: On [...] For Android mobile devices: Google Settings -> Ads -> Opt Out of Interest-Based Ads or Ads Personalization
Comment linking /privacy-policy
on “The Perils of Private Provision of Public Goods”Submitted Daniel Gross: Why Energy Is the Best Predictor of Talent [audio] as a story · 3 points
HN discussionGDPR prevents companies like "safe"graph [1] from selling mined data: >The GDPR (European Law) > As of May 25, 2018, a new data privacy law known as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or the "GDPR") went into effect through the EEA countries. SafeGraph does not offer products or services involving the collection or sale of “personal data” in EEA countries. We likewise seek not to collect such personal data f…
Comment linking /privacy-policy
on “Statement on 4 Years of GDPR”Submitted Data-as-a-Service Bible (2019) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI am an accredited investor. It's the SEC rules that bother me. There are companies that have taken a lot of investors on but it's usually fairly onerous: https://safegraph.com/blog/safegraph-raises-16-million-serie...
Comment linking /blog/safegraph-raises-16-million-series-a
on “SpaceX raises $1.9B”Submitted It’s Our Moral Obligation to Make Data More Accessible as a story · 1 points
HN discussionReminder: Due to GDPR, companies can not track when people have gone for abortions and sell said data. Remember safegraph [1]? This is in their privacy policy[2]. > As of May 25, 2018, a new data privacy law known as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (or the "GDPR") went into effect through the EEA countries. SafeGraph does not offer products or services involving the collection or sale of “personal data” in…
Comment linking /privacy-policy
on “GDPR and the Lost Generation of Innovative Apps”Submitted Non-Obvious Rules to Raising a Series B as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI'm getting a lock of kicks out of the comments here. Clearly, many people don't get it's a joke (but at the same time, based on a survey whose purpose is probably not to make that joke in the first place (1)). I'm considering using this as a filtering device. Misunderstanding this is a red flag for not trying to understand the context. And having a raging negative reaction to it is a red flag for temperament. (1) I…
Comment linking /blog/why-the-famous-peter-thiel-interview-question-is-so-predictive
on “Manifesto of the Silent Minority”Submitted Social Distancing Metrics Dataset for Researchers as a story · 1 points
HN discussionthx -- really appreciate it. it took me six months to write so I am glad it was helpful. just added comments on the bottom of the post if you want to ask any questions: https://www.safegraph.com/blog/data-as-a-service-bible-every...
Comment linking /blog/data-as-a-service-bible-everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-running-daas-companies
on “DaaS Bible 2.0: Why Data Standards Matter”Submitted Why “Exit Transparency” Can Make Companies Stronger as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThere's many such services, look for "points of interest (POI) data" or sometimes "place data". https://www.safegraph.com/ (premium) or https://poidata.xyz/ (cheap). If it's just restaurants in that one city there might be a government open data set like food/health inspection. https://health.data.ny.gov/Health/Food-Service-Establishment... (note the 'export' button on the top right).
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Where can I buy a list of Restaurant Names & Address in NYC?”Blogspam of https://www.safegraph.com/dashboard/reopening-the-economy-fo... This site is trapping back-arrow navigation; not recommended.
Comment linking /dashboard/reopening-the-economy-foot-traffic
on “Covid-19: New SafeGraph ‘Foot Traffic Patterns by State and Industry’ Dashboard”
